Crashing Down
by Psychic City
Summary: A retake of the Stu Pot incident on D-Day. His perspective in a coma, as well as Murdoc's bitter perspective caring for him. I've definitely added my own touch to it, as well. Please let me know what you think! R & R
1. D Day

**Psychic City- **Well, first fanfiction ever and I'd love to know your opinions on it. So, have at it, of course.

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**Chapter One:**  
**D-Day**

"Hello, sir! May I help you?"

_"Shit."_

Murdoc Niccals- dark, shadowy, and a bit stoned- stood unmoving in his spot. He had been leaning against the shelves of the dingy little music shop, stuffing an endless supply of guitar picks into his trouser pockets when he'd heard the Cockney voice sound out from behind him. His fingers faltered, sending a cluster of the picks to the floor, which he hastily kicked under the counter with a flick of his scuffed Cuban boots. When he'd decided to scrutinize the music shop that he'd only later planned on robbing, he had not anticipated on actually having to deal with any employees. He stuffed his hands further into the depths of his pockets, swore fiercely at the blank wall ahead of him, and spun around sharply.

However, a new sense of amusement came graciously to him at the sight of the approaching Saturday boy. Far too pretty to be a male, and yet far too lanky to be a female, the nearing figure approached peppily with a smile on his pale face. Murdoc squinted vibrantly, staring obviously at this head of azure blue hair and the pathetic white button-up the kid had tried to appear professional in. He suppressed a fit of uncontrollable laughter and instead gestured out his hands curiously. "What's this?" he asked, a red tint of enjoyment overtaking his pale green face. "What am I looking at?"

The gangly employee glanced down at himself, taking in his own lengthy black tie, and his shirt that had been properly tucked into a pair of matching black trousers. He stood still for a moment and Murdoc relished in the realization that the kid had not noticed the pile of picks still present on the floor. Nonetheless, he stood uneasily, not quite sure if the man was trying to be friendly to him or if he was being made fun of. "... What're you...?" the kid blinked, and Murdoc only leaned back against the counter steadily.

Murdoc's finger traced the kid up and down, a smile overtaking his otherwise pitiful face. "I'm gonna tell you something, mate," he said, perhaps both stoned and drunk, "this get-up you've got going on- your erm,_ look-_ it sure made my day."

"Get up?" Blinked the blue-haired figure, who couldn't have been a day older than twenty. However, reanalyzing the kid, Murdoc decided he may have even been perhaps younger. He shook his head: kids these days? Didn't the own a mirror?

"Got everything alright over here, Stu?" A voice from the distance cut Murdoc short in his spurts of laughter. He pried open his eyes, only to see a large figure of a man in the near distance. His white shirt fit him more suitably than the boy's and, by the looks of his shiny gold name tag, he had the appearance of a professional. Murdoc grimaced, wiping the devious smile off of his face instantly and swept the last of the guitar picks under the shelves before glancing back up the meet the stout man in the eyes.

Short and overweight, the balding man's name tag read 'Norm' and Murdoc swore for a third time under his liquor laced breath. But Norm was already swooping forward. He wore a suspicious smile as he advanced, clamping a hand down on the blue boy's slender shoulder. The kid huffed on impact, though returned his boss' gesture with a stupid-looking smile. "Looking for anything in particular, sir?" Norm questioned, his hand still resting atop the kid's slumped shoulder. "If you were looking for anything in particular, I'm sure Stuart here could help you out."

Stuart's smile remained and Murdoc felt a twinge of annoyance churn in the pit of his empty stomach. Twat.

His mind raced. He perhaps even appeared more anxious than he had anticipated, though further took the swell of emotions to have been caused by the liquor. Regaining himself, he straightened up and took back on the stature of being somewhat composed. With a standard looking stance, he readjusted his posture and cast his eyes around the shop delicately. "Yeah," he said soothingly, to further wiggle himself out of any suspicious hole he'd previously thrust himself into, "actually, I was just looking at the keyboards over there..."

"Perfect!" Sang Norm, clamping the boy, apparently Stu, even harder on the shoulder. Murdoc glared pitifully at the two of them and decided that he couldn't wait to steal every single instrument out of Uncle Norm's annoying little shop. He imagined the man's cheerful face melting at the sight of whatever remained of it the day after, and the thought of it brought a mistakenly friendly smile to his green tinted face. "Stuart can show you the keyboards, alright. He's a natural, aren't you, Stu?"

Stuart scraped his polished black shoe at the top of the carpeted floor. He turned a bit red and said modestly, "I dabble."

Norm's face perked up. He peered at Murdoc as if they'd been long time friends. "He dabbles!" he exclaimed as if he couldn't believe it, "listen to that. 'I dabble', he says. Can you believe it?"

Murdoc's face soured. "Hilarious," he quipped, and Norm wiped the escaping spit from his disgusting black hole of a mouth. He looped a greasy hand around Murdoc, making him squirm, and led the two over to the row of keyboards that he'd had displayed neared the bag. He forced both the boys in front of the instruments, held out his hands like a God, and stood proudly over them with a happy smile. Snake-like, Murdoc slid out from under the big man's grip and glanced back out at the soggy streets before him. A slight rain had started out in front of him, and the sky now looked an impossible shade of melancholy.

"Well, Stuart," Norm said, this time patting Murdoc on the back and making him cough, "it's all you, kid." With that, he lumbered out of sight, back into the desolate music shop, with his eyes greedily eyeing the spare customers in the front.

Murdoc smoothed back out his head of messy black hair, rolling his eyes and considering when it might be the best time to stride back out the front door. He glanced up; Stuart looked attentively back at him, an awkwardly shy expression on his face, as if he hadn't possessed a clue on how to start a conversation about keyboards. For the sake of playing the part of the curious shopper, Murdoc flatly started off the conversation. He placed one hand on the key and played a three note little tune without much hesitation. When he drew back, he said without much enthusiasm, "which one of these babies is the best to make off with?"

Stu's face crunched up slightly. With a persistent tone that was all the more annoyingly friendly, he asked, "make off with?"

"Let's just say I were in a hurry, Stu," Murdoc drawled, "and I had to grab one of these keyboards quickly without much thought, huh? Which one should I make off with?" Then, carelessly, he shrugged up his shoulders. "Hypothetically speaking."

The kid, with his silly polished outfit and his shaggy head of distracting blue hair glanced back at the keyboards before looking back up at Murdoc. Still, he remained unsure as to how to even start to answer the question and, moronically, came back with only, "erm?"

Murdoc lifted a hand, eyes narrowing down at the dumbfounded Stuart with a vision that was all the less impressed. "Don't hurt yourself, kid," he replied, and lifted the collar of his dark black raincoat as he prepared to exit through the front door.

"Wait!"

The timid voice of the heavily accented sales boy made Murdoc stop in his tracks. He turned slightly on his clunky heels and only managed to lift a brow, despite his obvious rush to leave the store as soon as possible. "What do you want, kid?" he asked mildly, watching Stu as he glared back down at the keyboards. "I'm in a hurry and, believe it or not, I don't have all day."

Stuart reached at the back of his pocket, withdrew a card and shifted his long legs. He walked back towards Murdoc with a fit of strides and his nervous twitch of a smile crawled back to his otherwise slightly perplexed visage. "Norm's business card," he said finally outstretching a thin hand and offering the paper contact card in Murdoc's direction. "If you call and ask for Stuart Pot, I can help you with your keyboard questions. I give lessons-"

"Cute," Murdoc sneered, watching the boy uselessly hover. Keyboard lessons? Clearly he was not just stupid. He was out of his fucking mind. "But I'll have to pass, Stu."

Stuart Pot's face, it fell slightly and then reddened, mildly embarrassed. "Oh," he said awkwardly, "okay. Er..." and then, whimsically he drifted off, slinking back into the rows of monotonous keyboards, only to stare blankly off into the rainy distance.

Thus Murdoc refastened his collar and made his way back out the door. Sure, the booze had been setting in on him even more obviously now and, with a blatant sway in his step, he passed back down the gray sidewalk out into the bleak afternoon. From his pocket he pulled out his checklist- somewhat of a shopping list for the things that he knew he would now nab from Uncle Norm's. Then, with a jungle of his car keys, he mounted back up the hill to where he'd parked his car, flopped back down in the driver's seat, and waited.

"Got what you needed, Muds?" came the sly voice belonging to the passenger, but Murdoc didn't move to glance over at him. Instead, he flicked up a new cigarette and pried it between his thin lips. He reached down by his feet and brought out the newfound bottle of liquor he'd brought along with him, just incase. He didn't have to answer his darkly dressed drone, who sported a malicious smile behind the dark mask over his grimy face. Of course he had gotten what he'd needed. Now it was only just a matter of time.

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_10:00 pm_

Murdoc Niccals was seated slumped in the drivers seat with his eyes pressed shut from a drunken sleep he'd only just awoken from. Other than the street lights of the car park, the shadowy night before him remained as deep as ever. He breathed in, thrusting the empty liquor bottle out of the window before jamming the car keys into the ready ignition. A dual pair of headlights shone across the night sky, igniting the space out in front of the four burglars in the car. Though, perhaps it was because of the liquor, Murdoc was almost completely unaware of the speed the shitty machine had now taken up. Through the black night they rode, surpassing the remaining cars in the lot and only barely missing them by inches.

They jolted forward, the four of them all whooping with anticipation. The car struck the mound of the hill, sending them up and skyrocketing, fully airborne. They flew straight through it, too; the glass encased window of Uncle Norm's stupid little music shop. It came heavily with the shattering mirror sound of broken glass, jolting the two pairs of men up from their seats. Though still in a haze, Murdoc heard the sound of the passenger door swinging open, followed by those in the back. Their scattered footsteps broke out around him and, huffing, he knew that it was his time to get up.

Though the daze of liquor did not help much to advance him in his hovering step. He breathed in the stale air of the shop that he had only just hours ago spent a pointless amount of time scrutinizing. He slammed his tired leg outward, ignoring the tingle of sleep that had blatantly overtook it. Although something new made him stumble. Perhaps it was only an illusion, but something dark and chocking lay in a crumpled mess by his feet. He could hear the rough inhaling sounds emit from the ground below him and, reeling back with his own curiosity, he leaned forward into the light of his car's head beams to garner a better look. Squinting, Murdoc made out the nice white shit, illuminated by the enveloping darkness around him. He then saw the shine of the polished dress shoes out in front of him. And, of course, by the white light of his now smoking car, he finally saw the figure's messy head of impossibly blue hair.

"Shit," he swore blankly.

A loud clatter of falling metal rung loud in Murdoc's irritable ears. There, in the distance of the shop, stood the figure of one of his men, though his eyes were too hazy to be able to tell which one it had been. He noticed the dropped instruments on the floor and was rather annoyed when the men only lifted his shaking finger and pointed back down at the lump. "What the fuck is that?" he asked, horrified at the amount of blood that poured through the white shirt of the gasping kid.

Murdoc Niccals peered forward. The figure's eyes were only half-way back in his head and his eyes seemed unsure as to whether or not they wanted to remain open or shut. A crimson red trail of leaky blood rolled out from the corner of his left eye, which seemed to have vanished completely. Yet the unmistakable sounds of the kid's gasping breath echoed out through the dingy shop. Murdoc blinked slightly. Now he was one hundred percent sure. "That," he said matter-of-factly, "is Stuart Pot."

"You've killed him!" Came a second voice, much more distressed and high-pitched than the other. The shadowy figure of the second man had been, of course, much closer to Stu's unsightly body, thus revealing to him far more of the disturbing scene.

But Murdoc didn't say a word. Instead his eyes found something far more horrifying: a single blinking red light up in the corner by the right of the ceiling. The three other men allowed their eyes to follow, only minutely taking their gaze off of the suffering Stuart Pot. "Shit," croaked one of the men, who had also dropped the pile of instruments he'd been carrying, "the alarm!" Then, on fast feet, he bolted back out from the scene, holding tightly onto his face mask as he sprinted.

And when only Murdoc remained, he could feel himself slipping. The liquor, perhaps he'd had too much. However, Murdoc couldn't quite manage to even lift his own feet. So dizzy was his stance that all he could manage to do was stare back down at Stu, watch him attempt to breathe in a panicked sort of desperate way. Though, despite himself, he noticed the cocky way in which the kid's legs were twisted, the pathetic way in which he tried to cling onto consciousness, and he felt a tinge of oncoming laughter tickle him instantly. And, come on, the kid's hair was blue, for fuck's sake.

Murdoc Niccals' fits of laughter came out whether or not he'd really liked for it to. He clung to the hood of the car, hugged himself tightly in the stomach. He laughed until he heard the sirens of the police roll around the corner, laughed until the inside of the music shop came alive with the colors of red and blue. Only did he stop when he felt the clams of metal tighten around his wrists, when the hordes of policemen stood stunned at the sight of Stu on the floor beneath them. Then he was shoved into the cop car.

Only then, when he felt the cop car drive down the street and away from the music shop, did he not quite find it funny.


	2. Purple Haze

**Psychic City: **I'm going to do this a little bit differently. The chapters in this are going to switch on and off between 2D and Murdoc. I've been reading a lot of the writings on here and I've actually never seen one written in 2D's point of view whilst in a coma. I know, I know... a bit strange but, bear with me. I read an Irving Welsh book once where the main character was in a coma throughout the entire book. So, with that being said, I think this can work somehow.

Thanks for all the initial positive responses to this! I'm so glad that I'm motivated to continue writing this! Thanks, guys! I really appreciate the support!

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**Chapter Two:**  
**Purple Haze**

Stuart Pot felt a swerve of anxiety as a collection of fingers pried him up from the carpeted floor. Someone who sounded important snapped, "oy! watch his head!" and his back touched the hard mattress of what he'd only assumed to be a cloud. Stiff and rigid, another stuffy and unseen object clamped him thickly around his neck and he felt himself falling backwards. Four tiny wheels scoffed against the carpet underneath him and the bounded the stretcher upwards as it skidded against the hard pavement. A clustered chorus sound of sirens blended together and, despite the wave of nausea that suddenly overtook his half-conscious head, he found it impossible to reach forward and find his pills in the pocket of his jeans.

The drum roll of exhaustion whirled over him and he heard two doors slam before the start of a fast-paced engine. The familiar onset of a migraine came forth into his more aware senses and he screamed out, but no one seemed to hear him. What was horrifying was the pressure, the intense weight that seemed to hold him back down onto the lift. He felt a cold hand rush over his throbbing skull, felt five gloved fingers run through his greasy hair. The fingers pulled open his nice white shirt, pressed down on his torso and strapped him down, further onto the surface of Stuart's uncomfortable cloud. The direct pull of it terrified him and then, urgently, someone pried open his loose jaw and shoved a tube-like cord of what tasted like metal down his long, swollen throat.

There was a crash, a rattle, and then the doors swung open again. Someone pushed his aching body forward and the call of someone screaming danced around his head. A man's voice said over the fuzziness that enveloped Stuart's clustered brain, "Crashed right through the bloody window..."

The rattle was still there and the flash of bright white lights blinded him even behind his pair of shut eyelids. He could taste the involuntary metal in his mouth, could feel the trickle of what he hoped wasn't blood running down the entire length of his broken skull. They pushed him forward, slammed his uneasy body through a pair of swinging doors. Someone grabbed across him and he heard the clanging of metal, even felt the cold texture of it against his bruised skin. They picked up his limp wrist and dabbed away at the chilliest part of his forearm.

Pain shot through his dangling limb as the sensation of a forceful needle pressed its way through his skin. He felt the haziness of nausea, even felt the bile rise up in the depths of his throat, before he heard himself cough and moan spastically. He tried to recap everything, though realized a tinge of worry as he recalled absolutely nothing over the past couple of hours. He couldn't remember the morning, couldn't even remember waking up from his sleep the night before. He didn't remember work or the people he'd met during his shift. And as the shadowy figures of his blurry vision leaned closer in on him, he found himself completely lost when the voice of a concerned woman said shakily, "his heart rate is far beyond the usual..."

More urgent, the second voice of a sternly hostile man replied back, "we're loosing him!"

They were right; Stuart's ears only heard the fading sound of their loud tones. He could feel his eyes loll back, slink deep into his skull and darken the vision of the entire world around him. "He's not breathing!" someone shouted and it took Stu a moment to find that, once again, they were right. The pit in the center of his chest was empty. Churning violently, he felt the space in his chest clench up tightly as if his heart had gone... had completely vanished into the blackness that so overwhelmed him.

And as the second prick of a needle slammed down into his other wrist, he finally let go to the blurry darkness. The curtains of his eyes slid to a close and Stuart Pot felt nothing.

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"Oh, Stu!" said a meek little voice, the cry of a plump and largely busty woman who had only just recently pushed herself through the sterilized hospital building to land down at the side of her boy's white bed. Her red cheeks supported the dripping sensation of runny mascara and her own nurse's hat had been pried from atop her head of now frantic hair. Rachael Pot, now in a state of current hysterics, surged herself forward and placed her sweaty head atop the blanketed lump that had remained of her son. His chest slowly rose and fell beneath the flesh of her shivering arms.

Mrs. Pot lifted up her head, stilling her quivering lip. Her fingers found the end of Stu's chin and she lifted it gradually. "Stu, honny," she said stiffly, not bothering to wipe away the makeup that drooled from around her oceanic blue eyes. "Stu, it's Mummy... can you hear Mummy, Stu?"

The response of her lifeless son came in the pathetic roll of his head. Half expecting his eyes to flutter back open, she reeled back, slightly appalled when his body only flopped back down onto the mattress, ignoring her blatantly. She took in the blue tint to his bruised face, saw the unsightly stitches that ran up the right side of his forehead, and winced at his pair of black and blue eyelids. Then, when she was quite certain that she had come up short of luck, she broke down into a fit of uncontrollable sobs.

"Mrs. Pot, Stuart is in a peaceful place right now. If it helps any, consider him only just... sleeping."

"Well I know he's bloody well not sleeping!" hissed Mrs. Rachael Pot, glancing up from the torso of her catatonic son and glaring at the doctor in the doorframe. "And," she interjected, "for your information, I happen to know that studies show comatose patients can sometimes hear other people speaking to them while they're under." Then, adjusting herself, she made way for Stuart's hand, ignoring the pestering presence of the man. She'd never liked him anyway. Despite being aged and gray, she'd seen the exact same doctor when Stuart fell out of the family tree all those years ago. Back then he'd told her Stuart would be fine, that the fall was, by all means, only a harmless one.

That was before the migraines. That was before his bloody hair turned fucking blue.

"Come on, Stewie," she cooed softly, despite gripping her hand even harder onto his palm, "Mummy's here..."

However, to be quite fair, Rachael Pot had actually had quite the day. She had been sleeping in her bed with her husband when she'd got the late night call from the police. They said they'd had some bad news. Some bad news concerning her son, her only son. The couple rose from their beds without hesitation. She'd run to his room to grab her son his coat and yanked open the medication cabinet to retrieve her extra stash of pain killers just in case. Her husband, David, had done most of the talking to the police. They'd said something about some man with car, something about an eight-ball eye fracture and she'd almost physically lost it.

She didn't even want to see his sullen black eye anymore. She didn't even care. What she wanted was a conscious son. She writhed her hands at the thought of one Murdoc Niccals. Once she could get her hands on that man, she'd ring his neck. Officials, however, had told her that they'd taken the man into custody and that a trail was in the works. Though this did nothing to soothe the anger that swelled up harshly inside the large chest that belonged to Rachael Pot. After she was done with him, she'd assured herself that the man would be _begging_ for a prison sentence.

Her grip on Stu's wrists tightened and she found the ability to lift his blue hair and pull it away from his face. Delicately, she swiped it behind his ear and curled her palm under his chin. She could hear David and the police still conversing from the hallway outside the room behind her, could even hear the chatter of a news crew that had taken place outside. She felt almost sick at the sway of it, the horrible feeling that she knew almost all too well for her son. Always the protector, Rachael Pot knew that, first thing's first, she was Stuart's mother.

She heard the retracting sound of the doctor's scoffing feet slink away from her, leaving her and her son alone in the hospital room for a long while. She'd been left to her thoughts, to the lifeless vegetable of a son that lay loosely before her. A cord-like tube swirled out from his arms and protruded into his nostrils. The longest tube plummeted into his chest and she saw the bag of the castrator clinging to the end of the shiny metal bed. Grieving, her heart visibly ached for him.

She remembered years ago, after the fall from the tree and after his hair had grown out completely blue, when he'd come home from school glossy eyed and red in the face. He'd placed the blazer of his school uniform over his head like a replacement hood and flopped groggily into his bed without saying a single word. As Rachael Pot smoothed back the stray strands of her son's blue hair away from her face, she remembered climbing up the steps to his room and prying open the bedroom door to find him in a heap underneath his covers.

To him she'd said, "what's a matter, Stewie?"

And from the depths of his thick bed sheets, he had replied back, "no one at school wanted to sit with me at lunch today."

Rachael Pot had shifted her weight on the mattress of her son's bed. She glanced up at the ceiling he'd marked with thousands of little glow in the dark stars. Upon the walls were posters of various different zombie movies she hadn't really even approved of him watching. The posters were gifts from his father, of course, who'd been a bit of an enabler in her son's zombie flick movie addiction. Yet she ignored her annoyance with the inappropriate posters and returned back to the focus on her solemn son, who had not moved a single muscle from under his bed covers. "Well maybe," she'd said, reaching a hand up and placing it on top of the Stuart-shaped lump, "they're just shy."

From underneath the covers, Stu had shaken his blue head back and forth. She could hear the breaking sound in his voice as he started to choke up. He had said back to her, "No body wants to. They didn't want to sit with me yesterday, either."

As a mother, Rachael Pot couldn't help but feel her cords of sympathy easily being pulled. From the moment she'd seen Stuart come out of his room with blue hair she'd predicted that there was going to be trouble. Yet she'd kept her anger exclusively to the doctor, who'd already received a hefty amount of bitter phone calls on his answering machine. However, to Stuart she'd kept her calm. Lurching forward gently towards him, she pulled off his covers and looked down at him in a messy heap underneath them. She ruffled his curious colored hair and smiled at him. Back then, she hadn't a clue as to what to say to the boy. And now, as she stared back at her unresponsive son, who lay in a coma before her, she felt the same twinge of uncertainty in the pit of her sickened stomach.

"Stu," she said, slipping the hospital sheets closer to his chin, "put on a smile for Mummy."

* * *

Sure Stuart Pot had taken a lot of medication in his day but, truly, he had never felt a fuzziness as the one he was feeling currently. He felt the trail of warm fingers run over his face and the sound of a familiar female voice that, despite everything, managed to relax him. Though now he was fumbling back, back on his cloud and hovering in the darkness. Stuart, he had not a clue as to what was happening in the outside world around him, or why he couldn't wake up. But now, he was living in the world of purple haze, of Lucy in the sky, and kelidescope vision. He was untouchable, he was untouchable, he was untouchable.

Ouch. Fuck. Perhaps not.

Something like fingernails dug deeply into his forearm and he tried unsuccessfully to jerk away. The feeling quickly subsided and the sensation of softness traveled up his head and ran through his head of greasy hair. But Stuart wasn't really sure what to think- not that he would have considered his 'thoughts' as real ones anyways. He was, by all means, simply floating. The back and forth gamble of ideas that surpassed him did so in a fuzzy and blurry sort of way, as if he were seeing something through the eyes of someone blind or hearing from the ears of the deaf.

What he could hear was a sob and for a moment he thought it was his own. A strong sense of panic overtook him. Not only could he not remember the past couple hours, but moments of the entire course of the day had now left his memory. He couldn't remember a single thing, didn't remember driving or having driven to work. And in this sense, he wanted to cry, though to his despair he couldn't find he ability to even do that. Something harsh and unholy seemed to be keeping him unsteady in the darkness of what he assumed to be a middle-ground between the dead and the living. He, Stuart Pot, was incomprehensibly stuck.

What was going on? What was happening to him? He felt a migraine that he couldn't treat begin to press through his aching temples and he braced himself for even more blurriness. The lightening strike of pain slammed through his more sensible half and made him want to double over. He could even feel the bile rise in his throat, despite the metal he also felt intruding into it. His head told him that he was going to be late for work and that Norm would fire him. He thought about the kids that would show up at the shop, ready to learn how to play the keyboard to find themselves without an instructor... He thought of Paula Cracker, the pretty young waitress at the restaurant across the street, and how he'd never get a chance to ask her to dinner...

Then he thought of his mother and how she'd worry. He wanted nothing more than to climb up the stairs of his parent's house and flop back down into his bedroom, into the room that hadn't changed for a matter of years. He longed for the zombie flick posters and whatever remained of the sticky glow stars at the top of his ceiling. He longed to wake up in the morning and see the sun that he couldn't even hardly remember.

"He's in pain, I can tell!" shrieked a voice. Another loud scatter and he could only slightly sense a new presence around him. The breath of hot air swooped down upon him instantly. Then two cold hands pried his eyes open. He could feel the pressure, but he couldn't see the light. "His painkillers," moaned the voice and Stuart tired to glance around him to locate its owner but the blackness forbid him to. "Please, just give him his painkillers..."

On impact, he felt the third horrible slip of metal plunge into his flesh. The point of a sharp needle drove through his forearm and Stuart remembered with a fluttering flash of pain that he had always hated getting shots. And then his awareness, if it could have even been called as such, slipped from him vividly.

He heard the soft beat of his own fluttering heartbeat. His head seemed to fog over even more so, creeping in through his mind's eye with an unexpected and horrible movement. He felt himself drift, farther from the two voices, farther from being able to even think clear thoughts. And, for the second time since he'd entered the blackness, felt nothing.


	3. The Fundamentalist

**Psychic City: **I really love that there are some of you that are really into reading this story. And, for that, I will update much faster. You cannot fathom the appreciation I feel with every review, good or bad, because I just love to write. It definitely helps, too, when there are people there to encourage me and keep me interested in writing this. Thank you all so much and I read every one of the reviews I get for this. Despite there only being about two chapters so far (not counting this one), I am so far just completely flattered and admiring of all of you. Thank you again! I hope you enjoy the third chapter, too.

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**Chapter Three:**  
**The Fundamentalist **

They had given him a ride to the hospital, despite protest from Murdoc that he could very well drive himself there. He'd gotten the concept of driving now, he had exclaimed in court- avoid shop windows, and for God's sake 'blue' lights meant 'holy shit there's a person's face out in front of you!'. Though the court hadn't found his joke to be very funny, despite the occasional chuckle from Murdoc himself. Although he _had_ been a bit fuzzy with liquor even in those shaky moments. Yet still nonetheless, they'd taken away his license. And the old hag of a judge hadn't fallen victim to any of the Murdoc Niccals tactics, either. He'd even managed to wink and wave his tongue at her several times before deciding that she had to be, without a doubt, a lesbian.

She'd leaned in and said, "Murdoc Faust Niccals, you are a disgusting and horrible little man." The shadows emphasized her face and Murdoc thought that she looked like Death. Behind his podium, Murdoc blinked away the haziness caused by the rum he'd earlier consumed and tried to rid himself of the horrible complexion of the white-haired skeleton. However, after several attempts to shake her ghastly face away, Murdoc decided that the judge, unfortunately, must just really look like that.

At his side, Murdoc's lawyer had broken out in a vibrantly massive sweat. Pools of salty water trickled down from the top of his crown and bleed pathetically into his shirt collar. He kept tugging on his tie and readjusting it. Earlier in the day, he'd advised that his client be on his best behavior but Murdoc had clearly taken his advise with a grain of salt. They'd reached a happy medium anyway, Murdoc and his lawyer. At least he'd shown up wearing a suit.

The Death-faced woman of a judge lurched her body across the table she'd been seated at. Her gloomy face met seriously into Murdoc's and she prepared to finally speak out his damnation. "The court sentences you, Mr. Niccals, to thirty-thousand hours of community service as well as care for the vegetablized Stuart Pot for 10 hours every week." Which, of course, was where he, Murdoc Niccals, was now. In the back seat of a cop car, though this time without handcuffs, he'd watched the scene of the London city roll out before him and he felt a tinge of pity for himself.

Then the car pulled up through the large car park of the hospital. The police driver glanced back over his shoulder and glared at Murdoc from underneath his cap. The passenger cop pulled out from his seat first and walked a fast-paced stride over to the door to let Murdoc out. They seized him bitterly by the shoulders and forced him forward, through the odd onset of rain that had begun to sprinkle on them as they flew forward. Billy-Boy and the lot of Murdoc's other friends came to his mind. He made a note to himself as he walked down the sterile halls of the hospital that they would bitterly regret running out of the music shop that night.

"Room 23," said the voice of someone new and the two cops even looked up from Murdoc for a moment. The man was gray-haired and ancient. He looked up from his dark wooden clipboard and eyed Murdoc Niccals with a slightly demeaning gaze. He leered his eyes over to the two police officers and dismissed them dutifully, thus leaving Murdoc alone with him in the overly clean hallway. Murdoc felt a slight annoyance with the doctor already and, to further emphasize this, he rolled his eyes wearily. The man peered over his spectacles and it was probably the pills Murdoc had taken the hours before, but the doctor was beginning to resemble something of an eight-armed octopus.

Murdoc took a slightly uneasy step backwards, his eyes following up the front of the hospital door where a tiny little plate read "Stuart Pot". He glanced back up at the doctor and ignored the visions caused by far, far too much unnecessary medication. "What," he asked, cocking out his thumb and jabbing it towards the closed door, "the little vegetable is er... right in there?"

"You know, Mr. Niccals," croaked the doctor with his eyes directly at him, "what you've done has been very serious. Stuart's family is really very distraught."

Murdoc gritted his teeth, but allowed the man to finish. He'd been chided for three straight days, yet he didn't see what all the scolding was doing to further help the situation, either. The kid was still in a coma, and most importantly he, Murdoc, still had to waste away thirty-thousand hours of his life taking care of him. He shifted his weight and fumbled with the pack of cigarettes he'd kept in his side pocket of his black rain jacket. As the stern doctor continued, Murdoc wondered if it would be far too out of line to light up right then and there in the corridor.

"Do you understand the severity of your actions, Mr. Niccals?" The man asked, still clutching the clipboard to his white coated chest. He closed the distance between himself and the door to Stuart Pot's hospital room and looked as if he were almost prepared to open the door once and for all.

Showing his jagged row of rotting teeth, Murdoc smiled sarcastically to the man, though his grin was mistaken for being sincere. "Yeah, yeah, of course, doc, of course." Then, when he was certain that the doctor was at least slightly convinced, he clapped his hands together and ran his long tongue over his teeth. Alright," he said greedily, "let's get this show on the road."

They pushed open the door and Murdoc stumbled inside the well-kept room. His fingers pulled down the zipper to his rain jacket and he shed it off revealing a shaggy black over sweater and an inverted cross that the doctor instantly frowned at. However, he took a stance at the back of the room and continued to cling onto the damn clipboard, occasionally taking notes. At first the room seemed heavily dark, but they blinds had been shut over the windows and Murdoc could only see a thin little lump atop the hospital mattress. Because the doctor's presence was still hovering closely around him, Murdoc stepped again forward and cleared his throat. He reached his hand out slightly from the pocket of his trousers and leaned over the metal railing of the hospital bed.

Murdoc saw the dopey looking Saturday boy once he'd managed to readjust his vision. There he was, swollen with raised and purple flesh. His mouth dangled open slightly to make way for the cord that plummeted into his lips and there was a stretch of white gauze underneath his hairline so that several strands of blue hair flopped over it lifelessly. Both of his eyes were black and blue and Murdoc couldn't help but think, "well, at least it matches his hair-do."

The hospital gown practically floated on him. His thin arms were wound outside of the sheets and hand been placed gently around a furry stuffed bear. Murdoc's face crunched conclusively and, staring down at the kid curiously, he asked flatly, "how old did they say this kid was again?"

"Nineteen," replied the old man and Murdoc snorted. His amusement was further ignored, however, by the instant passing of paper. The old man handed him something laminated and made certain that he'd had it firmly in his grip. Murdoc gaped at the thing, and the doctor announced, "here's your list."

"A list for what?" Murdoc retaliated.

"A list for Stuart. And for yourself. You're going to need that list for quite a long time, Mr. Niccals." The copy was filled down to the very bottom, front and back, of a sort of hourly schedule. It told him where to be at what times, and what to tend to the kid with. He was only in the hospital for two days a week, five hours during each, but the hospital had done quite the job at scheduling his entire time while he was there. With a surge of bitterness Murdoc considered the fact that the group must have purposely created a list of mundane, hard-to-do, and horrible tasks, just to get back at him. His grip intensified on the laminated sheet and he peered down at it furiously. At noon he needed to be back in the hospital room to insert a feeding tube. At twelve-thirty, he was scheduled to 'talk' to the kid for hours. "You'd better get used to it to."

"Used to it!" Murdoc yelped at the unsightly vision of the word 'sponge bath', "you better damn well-"

"Mr. Niccals?" A soft voice in the hallway cut through the stale air and Murdoc, despite his anger, spun around. He reeled back at a new figure, a scrawny outline of a man in a hardware uniform. His hair was a mess on top of his head, quite like Stuart's, and he peered over his own set of specs. He looked a bit old for his age, whatever his age really was, and he glanced down at Murdoc with a gaze that was both pitiful and angered.

The dingy little stick-on name tag on his chest read "David Pot" and Murdoc's feelings towards him suddenly spiraled even further downward. Still, he didn't answer the back back. Only instead, he cocked up his brow and swiveled away from his son on the bed.

However, David Pot's gentle approach came slightly less grand compared to the new sound that came out from around the hallway. From behind him, the doctor's clipboard raised and he looked as if he were prepared to shield himself from hurling objects. "YOU!" roared the voice and then the visual of a plump woman came into sight. She was deranged looking even from far away and the manic shine behind her narrowed eyes looked sinister even in the pure little hospital. She reached out her thick arms and pushed past her husband in the doorframe. And, as if David was prepared for her, he scooted to his right and allowed her to wriggle through the door freely.

Still at Stuart's dingy little bedside, Murdoc considered the appearance of Rachael Pot. She looked almost nothing like her son, expect that she had his eyes. Well, one eye at least now, Murdoc remembered sorely. Her hair was brown and light, stuffed into a messy bun. He'd known her to be a nurse since he'd heard mention of it in court, but this time she as dressed in a frumpy overcoat. Her hair was plastered to her face from the rain and, even with the distance between them, she smelled like an overwhelming sense of hand sanitizer.

She hurdled herself towards Murdoc, eyes blazing an intense shade of red and, before he could fully realize the situation, she'd stood within inches of his face. "I will ring your bloody neck, you degenerate little swine!" Up close, Mrs. Pot was far more menacing than she looked. Her messy hair looked snake-like around her bright red face. She spat at Murdoc harshly without her words and, despite himself, Murdoc found that he was shrinking in his spot minutely. When she grabbed for his neck, he stumbled backwards, slipped sloppily on the tile floor, and missed her prying fingers by just inches.

"Murdoc Niccals, you get over here!" Murdoc had slipped defensively at the other side of Stu's hospital bed and, with wild eyes, glanced around for a shield of his own. Instead, however, at the sight of an advancing Rachel, he lifted Stu's pathetic toy teddy bear and chucked it as hard as he could in her oncoming direction. The soft plush toy hit Rachel in the corner of her head and she stepped back, blinking curiously at the discarded toy she'd brought for her son. Her expression churned and, upon rising up her face, she resembled much of a very pissed off bull. "I will murder you!" she shouted, springing back into action and making off towards the squirming man behind her son's bed. "I will make you regret the day you ever crashed your car into my son's- _hey!"_

Two pairs of hands clung onto her stomach within the instant- and just in time too. She'd only been several centimeters from successfully seizing Murdoc and wringing him dry. Instead she was held backwards, permitting Murdoc to press his back heavily up against the hospital wall and grab fiercely for his inverted cross necklace. He held it out in front of him towards her as if warding off a demon.

The dual police officers had reemerged from out of nowhere to hold back Stu's furious mother and they dragged her even further from Murdoc's figure. "_Ouff!"_she squealed, slapping the arms of the men._ "_Get off of me, you wankers! Let me go!"

But she was pulled even further back, back beyond the doctor and even her husband. The three remaining men heard her sob fittingly before they yanked her away completely, and then she was gone from sight. Murdoc's stiff posture slumped forward and, exasperated, he dropped his necklace and glanced up just in time to see the fleeting figure of David Pot, who'd followed suit of his wife obediently before also vanishing from visible sight completely.

"Distressed, huh, doc?" Murdoc breathed once the two had gone. He'd remembered the way the man had described the boy's family earlier in their conversation. "That, mate, is a right understatement!" He'd slipped away from the wall once he was certain he could regain himself, pulled away from the window, and flopped down greedily on the hospital furniture that squeaked slightly even underneath his light weight. He watched the open door and glared down the corridor achingly. "I've created a fucking monster."

The man inched towards the door himself. He didn't respond back to Murdoc directly, however the expression on his face signified that he'd experienced years of the same hostility from the woman. Though really, despite her foolishness, the old man couldn't blame her. He gave one last sad glance towards the kid vegetable before him and shook his head. Nineteen years old and the boy was spending his youth in a hospital bed. "Well," sighed the doctor after a while, eyeing Murdoc with a much more accusatory gaze, "you've got your list." And then, hastily, he made his way out of the hospital room, forcing the door shut behind him.

* * *

"Well," Murdoc Niccals started, musing slightly. He'd reached down into his duffle bag and protruded a bottle of liquor that he'd actually been surprised to find had been packed there. "Well, Stuart, er... I guess this just leaves you and me, doesn't it?" He picked his heavy hand up and plucked away the stupid teddy bear that he'd left on the floor. Then, cleverly, he stuffed it into his duffle bag and therefore promised to shove it in the paper shredder later. "It _would_ have been just me if you hadn't felt it necessary to stick your head underneath my car, you bloody bastard," replied Murdoc Niccals, taking another swig of his vodka handle.

His resentment for Stuart Pot grew perhaps even stronger as he sipped at the glass thing, eyeing him with suspicious contempt, as if this 'coma' ordeal were, in fact, all part of the boy's plan in the first place. However, Murdoc darted forward and glanced back up at the cameras that he knew were present in the corner. They blinked 'hello' with a bright red flash and Murdoc flipped it off back, though offered them a rather unfriendly smile.

He slipped his hand under the tubes of Stuart's hand and glanced minutely at the hospital bracelet looped around his wrist. "Stuart Pot. Pot, is it?" he read a loud, raising his voice so that the cameras could perhaps pick up that he was doing so. Hey, if prison inmates could get months kicked off their sentence for good behavior then, by all means, why couldn't he? However, despite this thought, Murdoc lowered his voice and looked Stuart Pot in his shut eyelids. "Well, _Stu Pot," _he emphasized his name as if saying it out loud were a bad thing, "you are going to regret the day you made me hit you with my car."

"I could have had a band," he continued flatly, and then washed down the bitter taste in his mouth with more vodka. "I could have hand a collection full of Uncle Norm's instruments, but you, _you _had to be at work after hours." Murdoc scoffed harshly and then threw his head back and shut his eyes closed. Maybe vodka was not the best cocktail to blend with whatever medication Murdoc had found in the depths of his closet. He overlooked the feeling of floating that overtook his body ruthlessly. It was a strange feeling and yet, an all too familiar one.

With his head pitched backwards, he remembered reading over Stuart Pot's file in the back seat of the cop car. They'd given him the thing as a reference and, even to Murdoc's surprise, he'd actually flipped through it. Stuart Pot had been, quite frankly, a rather pure kid. He hadn't gotten in much trouble, aside for his habit of spray painting in the downtown alleyways. But, despite the graffiti work, he hadn't managed to get in any more trouble at all. They'd then handed him a file full of nothing interesting in particular. It was a doctor's list of allergies and previous medical recordings. Murdoc elongated his neck and breathed out. He remembered that the specific file had said that Stuart suffered from severe migraines and that he'd been authorized the use of heavy pain medications to help combat the pain of it all. Eyes snapping open, Murdoc wondered where he could start looking for such medications.

Still, the Satanist found it in him to lean forward and rest his heavy head on his palms, reanalyzing the kid for the third or second time- he couldn't quite remember. In his deep sleep, the kid didn't look at all cheerful. In fact, he resembled something of quite the opposite. He'd already seen his slightly opened mouth, but the expression on his face was loose and confused. Stuart looked as if he were both in the middle of being somewhere between ill and relaxed, as if every feature in his pale face had given up.

And yet he still looked slightly pretty, like a woman and yet too scraggly to be such. His eyebrows were bent down in a slightly pitiful expression, as if he'd really truly understood his condition. And Murdoc was lightly relieved to find that Stu looked pitiful for himself because he, Murdoc, was far too high and intoxicated to be. Besides, Murdoc had never truly felt the surge of puty, other than for himself. What he did feel, however, was an overwhelming need for Stuart's special migraine pills. Just watching the lifeless kid was giving Murdoc at least _something _of a migraine. Like, some sort of headache, at least. "Alright, Stu," he said leaning forward and trying to speak clearly into the kid's ear, "stop being greedy. I know you've got those babies someplace around here."

But he did not go looking for the pills. Instead he only rested himself back. Someplace on the schedule, he knew he should be checking Stu's blood pressure. He knew that he should be writing it down somewhere in the notebook that the hospital had given him to record the boy's progress. He wasn't going to do any of that- not right now- because right now he needed his sleep. In fact, his sleep was knocking pretty vibrantly on the door of his eyelids and yanking them down like curtains. The room of the hospital swung around him violently and he clutched on to the chair's arms with great enthusiasm. Then, sloppily, he strode upwards and, for the cameras especially, swung aside Stu's sloppy head of blue hair and freed it from the depths of his shut eyelids as if he were, in fact, doing the boy a favor.

To the cameras, he shrugged, as if doing such a thing were his faithful and God-given duty. "No need to thank me," he mouthed graciously, in a mock-appreciative voice, "if you want to let me off the hook early, though... I mean, it's totally and completely your call, ladies and gentlemen." And, for good measure, he bowed before turning back to Stuart and running a hand over his forearm.

He dug his fingernails furiously into the kid's pale flesh, but to the camera faked a gentle expression and, with his freehand, moved away even more of the boy's unruly messy head of hair. Then he scuffed it up, ruffling it like a father. "Come on, Stu," he said for the sake of those watching behind the cameras. In reality, he just bloody well wanted to go home. His feet swayed out from underneath him and his fingernails unclenched around Stuart's thin little wrist. He flopped back into the hospital couch and slumped backwards with his neck outstretched like a bird. He smiled to himself, allowing the world of the hospital room to swirl out from all around him. He sat at the edge of the chair and permitted his legs to bound up and down around him like an anxious little kid. With a fumbling hand, he fiddled with his zipper on his rain jacket and let the thunder sound out around him.

The boy didn't fumble, didn't look up, and didn't give Murdoc any sign of awareness. In fact, Murdoc was certain he had ever seen a person resemble much more of a vegetable than Stuart "The Vegetable" Pot himself. He chuckled, feeling once again that strange surge of having drank a bit too, too much. He was never going to like this kid, he could tell. He was never going to get out of this place, either. No matter how false he acted towards the cameras. Still, despite the blinking red light of the video cameras in the corner, he breathed his cigarette and liquor rancid breath back on to Stuart Pot and winked vibrantly. It wasn't as if the kid could hear him anyways. Even if he leaned in and yelled, so loudly, in Stuart's ear, he was almost one hundred percent certain that his comments would go unheard. And yet still, despite that certain fact he'd had, he made certain to threaten the kid, just in case he was wrong. He said, "wake up and give Mudsy-Wudsy a smile."


	4. Caretaker

**Psychic City:** I'm so sorry that it took me a right eternity to even begin to upload this. However, I got an ample amount of reviews over the past couple of days and, surprisingly, I think that there's been a whole new surge of interest in this all over again. So, I've got the motivation to continue it if anyone's still up for it as well. Please don't hesitate to submit a review and let me know your thoughts, opinions, or questions! They are all read and greatly appreciated.

So, without much more ranting, here's chapter four, after what has turned into a matter of weeks of waiting. Sorry! I promise that if the interest continues, the story will as well! Thing is, I was looking for some more stories based off of Stu and Murdoc's beginning, but I could really only find one other one that went into it. Huh.

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**Chapter Four:**  
**Caretaker**

Stuart remembered with a twitch the moment when he was little and no one would sit next to him at the lunch tables. He remembered this in the middle of the haziness that overtook his memory and everything was blurry and almost a little bit foggy. Yet, he could still picture himself at the back of the school with his uniform gray blazer over his head like a spare hood. He remembered, clearer now as the haze started to just slightly melt away, the rain clouds ahead and the fast-paced he had tried to maintain in his footing. Despite the dream-like atmosphere of Stuart's childhood memory, he seemed almost oblivious to the day's prior worries of forgetfulness and immobility. Instead, his main focus remained on the memory as if it were really a current issue. Thus, he once again placed himself on the cold and dreary side walk, once again clung tight onto the school blazer above his head, and once again heard the pounding of oncoming footsteps close in behind him.

Other than the usual worry that flooded Stuart during his alleyway walk home from school, there was something particularly frightening about the current effect of the memory. The extra footsteps bounded against the brick walls of the tall buildings before him and his grip tightened against the fabric of his jacket. A fit of incomprehensible whispers made a cold shiver travel down the boy's hunched spine and he focused on his feet, despite the fact that their speed was only rather mediocre. Then, from the depths of the alley, a voice shouted, "incoming!" and- _splat-_- a brownish yellow banana peel landed directly in front of him, missing his sneakers by inches.

The boy whirled around, still hiding cautiously behind his jacket. Yet he barely peeked out from behind the raised sleeve, scanned the darkness, and surveyed the four massive shadows at the end of the long street. Tall, thick, and giggling, the dual pair of boys wore matching smiles. They chuckled at Stuart as his shoulders slumped, recognizing the figures from the school yard. They towered over him and each were almost virtually twice his size. Their cupped hands held a collection of fruits, and Stu heard the middle one shout, "four!" before a bright red apple spun right in his direction.

The thing landed just before him, splicing on the street within minutes. Stu's grip on his school blazer slackened and he dropped the rather expensive thing as he stumbled backwards. Though the boys were much quicker. Their shadows advanced and with a couple quick strides, they had found their way up to Stu without much trouble. "Cute 'do," grunted the shortest of the four, though also the most wide. His stomach busted out of his own matching uniform and his eyes glistened with the mischief of someone much older than a fourth grader. Still, he outstretched a meaty and and flicked the boy's pale forehead with a simple twitch of his finger.

"Anyone ever tell you that you look like a stick of cotton candy?" asked one of the two in the middle. He tugged ruthlessly on the dangling bits of Stuart's blue head just below his ears. When he noticed the boy's face redden however, he let go and turned to the other three for a chuckle. "Look at him," he accused, extending a finger under the young Stuart's chin, "I think we really got under his skin."

Really, Stuart just wanted to leave. He wanted to go home and crawl back into his room. He didn't care about the color of his hair or about the blazer that had been knocked to the floor in the rain puddles below him. He decided right then and there that at that moment, he could care less about his blue hair. He just wanted to be able to have a head after he was certain the boys before him would try to knock it clear off of his shoulders. Yet he couldn't help the instant shiver that overtook him. He chewed anxiously on his bottom lip and blinked out the haziness that came into his eyes. Vision blurry with the onset of fresh tears, he braced himself for what he only knew was coming.

The bigger of the four, he latched onto the front of Stuart's white school polo and pulled him up from the ground. "I think," he said, chewing on a big bubble of pink gum, "we can help you with your hair problem, Tusspot," and from behind his back he pulled out a pair of shining metal scissors. Even in the lack of light, the sharp things glistened behind the shadowy atmosphere of the alleyway. The boy's fingers drew the two blades apart and he snapped the blades back shut with a forceful snap. He felt the raised boy twitch above the ground and a larger smile spread across his wide and puffy face. "What do you think, boys?" he asked, still missing several teeth of his own. He questioned the other figures with a slight glance over his shoulder, "think we could help Stu out with his hair problem?"

"Sure do," pipped in the others, withdrawing their own scissors from behind their backs. Stu saw them draw in closer, felt someone tug with full force at his shaggy blue hair and yank Stu's head drastically to the left.

A panic overtook Stuart and he remembered raising his trembling fists without really thinking. Despite his sweaty palms, he extended his own scrawny hand forward, not really a match for the four bulky boys that held him down, and clawed for the scissors himself. However, his movement had done him some good; his sudden jerk had caused the boy around his shirt collar to stumble back, obvious not expecting the move. Squealing, he released his tightened fist and Stuart fell to the ground and his head slammed back against the wet pavement. For a split second, Stu and all for boys remained motionless, each listening to the quiet little whimper that emitted from Stu's throat. He blinked up at the rain cloud laced sky, feeling the wind rush bitterly out of his heaving chest and noticed the scrape on his extended palm.

The four uniform school boys exchanged glances, first back and forth at one another, then back at the boy on the ground. "You slimy little bastard," shouted the tallest, whose scissors had fallen from his own hand, cutting his palm in the process. He cradled onto his bleeding fist and then lunged back down to retrieve his fallen possession. With a rapid swipe, he lifted the scissors back up from the cement pavement and grabbed Stu's skinny ankle, yanking him forward across the alley ground before his meaty claws reached back for the boy's squirming wrists.

"You will pay for that," he reassured Stu and grabbed the largest fistful of blue hair that he could fit in his hands. With that, he snapped shut his scissors around Stu's outstretched locks, sending a mass amount of azure strands into the rain puddles in a few short moments. The shortest boy neared Stu, glanced harshly in his eyes, and wrapped a hand around his classmate's mouth. He started in, snipping away at a brand new handful and leaving a butchered bare spot in the top of the boy's head.

And then the haze that had drawn Stu so strongly back into his memory returned around the corner of it, just as mysteriously as it had come. Swirling and majestic, it floated around the scene like powder and devoured gracefully the alleyway that it passed through. First it erased the trash bins and the rain puddles. Then, without hesitation, it swiped away the shouts of the boys and silenced Stu's anxious mind. Despite the headache that he could still feel, and despite the ill nausea that washed over him intensely, he found safe satisfaction in the vanishing scenery.

The moment pulled away from him slowly, thus leaving Stu to the darkness, to his own private thoughts where he remembered only the essence of that day and how he never, ever wanted to be bullied ever again in his lifetime. The sensation of reality felt to be even quite a pleasure to him and he felt comfort in knowing that, though he could not move, he could sense the presence of someone leaning in close to him. And he heard the voice of someone slur. Despite the whisper, he heard the tone of someone curious say, "give Mudsy-Wudsy a smile..."

And he tried. Despite his blatant unsuccessfulness, he felt joy in knowing that he was out of his nightmare. Even in the utter blackness of seeing behind his eyelids, a certain warmth spread throughout his vastly beating heart and, nonetheless, calmed him greatly. For a second he thought he could recognize the voice and the sound of it, but as the presence of the being leaned away from him, he only heard the squish of a cushion sound out before him. For a moment he wondered it the being had settled down, though he only became quite certain when he heard the rough grunt of what he assumed was a man. "Come on," the voice said again, "don't look so down, Stu. You're getting a 'get off easy' card, you bloody git. Me, on the other hand, ehh... not so much."

Was he? Was he getting a 'get off easy' card? In his catatonic state, he wasn't exactly sure what he was getting, though he was quite certain that it wasn't much. He still had not been able to move his arms or legs, and every so often, he would rev himself up into consciousness.

However, at the very least, Stuart considered the possibility that, at least, he was getting some insight. Usually people talked as if he were not there, as if he did not exist. And thus, Stuart oddly enjoyed being the fly on the wall in these situations, though, try as he might to wake up. Still, he was positive that he could feel the warm embraces of what he'd assumed were people's arms around his shoulders. Every so once in a while, he could feel their embrace around him and, though he could not hug them back, felt a slight sense of ease at the notion of their warmth.

Yet something about this man speaking to him now seemed a bit different. Stuart could tell that he was not exactly happy with him, yet he could not explain why. Though, still, unable to question the slurring voice, Stu Pot remained a silent listener, however trapped behind the veils of sleep.

Something shifted him from underneath the covers and Stu Pot felt a collection of five cold fingers slip underneath him. Though his body could not physically shutter, he felt an intense bout of ice travel up his drawn out spine. For a moment, he thought he might yell out, and he seemed to also forget that he couldn't even do such a simple thing in the first place. Still, the fingers yielded, and the voice ahead of his grumbled something inaudibly. Leaning forward, Stu could feel the hot, horrid breath at the front of his face. What he could not see, however, was the expression that Murdoc Niccals was giving him from above.

The green skinned man considered the comatose kid's sloppy facial expression for a moment, feeling a strange ping of unfamiliar guilt, a feeling that was not completely normal to him. The look etched on Stu's visage was a loose one. His eyebrows were positioned upwards, in a confused sort of manner, and the gaping hole that was his mouth only just hung open. Despite the long tube that extended out from the inside of his lips, Murdoc's shoulders fell down ever so slightly. "Oh, come off it," he muttered, referring to the pathetic look, "it's not like I have a choice. That bleedin' doctor of yours gave me a list." Still, he continued in his work, fixing Stu so that he flopped on his side.

Yet, dumbly, his body flipped over as it was positioned to, and his lifeless hand swung over the skeletal side that struck out in the air. There was a shuffle of papers and the man before Stuart seemed to give the list a good reading over before sighing grievingly. "Sodding bastard," the man retorted, giving Stuart one hardy push and watching him reactively fall face first on the mattress. Stuart did not move a single muscle as he felt his face plummet into the depths of a soft white pillow and the back of his hospital gown lift up within the instant.

"Oh."

Murdoc's face changed drastically as he caught sight of the horrifying vision of the kid's posterior back. He had only lifted up a fractional amount of the mint green gown, graciously covering the boy's backside, but still managed to see the damaged state of his pale skin. His left eye gave a slight little twitch, outwardly loathing the doctor and the hospital staff for putting 'clean wounds' on his list of daily tasks. Still, as he scrutinized the bloody mess at the young kid's bare back, he had to admit- they did look pretty daunting.

His face crumbled as the mere thought of the hospital staff crossed his mind. He was certain they'd enjoyed seeing him enduring the dirty work of caring for Stuart Pot, the asshole. In his detest, he could imagine the lot of them, huddled up in a corner as they watched him gaze down at the massive and open wound, just waiting for him to start. For the second time, Murdoc cursed the kid for sticking his face at the bumper of his car in the first place as he grumpily reached out towards the bucket of washing water that had been casually left out for him.

Over his unmistakable grumbling, he rung out the soft cloth, analyzed it miserably, and forced it upon the back of Stuart's exposed skin. He had to admit, however, that the injury was quite the unfortunate one. Whatever had caused a hefty majority of the boy's back to scrape off had done quite a job at it. In the sense of a brutal flashback, Murdoc recalled seeing the Saturday boy slam harshly on the carpet floor before sliding thickly across it. Then, coming back to his current senses, he mumbled bitterly as he furiously scrubbed away at the thing.

"You know, you're certainly not making this easy for me, Pot," Murdoc groaned, glancing to the side of the desk and noticing with a sinking heart that the hospital had also left a hearty amount of bandages for him to conclude with. The snake-like image of rolled up gauze made Murdoc's blood boil. "You just keep coming up with more and more injuries just to piss me off, don't you?" With a swift and angry jerk of his arm, he pushed the wash cloth back over the exposed parts of the patient's back. "Don't think I'm not on to you."

Stuart Pot, however, did not even slightly flinch. Inwardly, however, he could feel his heart twist unforgivingly. As the man drew the wet towel over the surface of his wounds, Stu felt an intense amount of pressure that made his head swell and his guts twinge. However, he mentally gritted his teeth, feeling weak even in his consciousness. And even, for a split second, he felt sorry for the man who had been assigned the job of cleaning his injury up. Sympathy filled the comatose boy's heavy chest. Surely the man did not deserve to be bothered with such a burden and, sheepish, Stuart couldn't help but feel a swell of guilty humiliation wash over him unexpectedly.

But Murdoc had finished as quickly as he had started. Despite cleaning up the boy in a sloppy way, he lunged over and grasped the gauze, unraveling it messily before stretching it over Stuart's back and whacking the covered wounds with the face of his clammy palm. "Good as new!" he shouted, triumphantly and then, leaning back, he returned to the lengthy task list with an open mind. However, his feeling of completed accomplishment faded as he caught sight of the next bullet point.

His mismatched eyes scrambled over the surface of the laminated sheet and he felt the little amount of color drain conclusively from his face. The second item on the list lunged out at him clearly and, though the fog that captivated his blurry vision, Murdoc read the words: physical therapy. His dry mouth cracked open and he checked the time on the clock above, noting that he was already late as scheduled. However, the few directions under the second bullet told him that the therapy process was simple. All he'd needed to do was to move the boy's limbs around, gently. Still, there was something about the notion of physical contact that made Mudoc involuntarily shutter and, wincing, he snorted, "you've got to be shitting me."

Murdoc glared down at the face-down vegetable. His stupid azure blue hair swung limply across his pale face, and his shut eyes showed off the intense purple bruise that tainted the outside of the both of them. Yet, the man at the other end of the hospital bed gave a disheartened sigh, wanting to punch the sleeping kid in the face rather than gently move his arm around in a loop of useless circles for an hour. However, his eyes danced up to the blinking camera in the corner and, resisting the urge, he once again pressed forward and flopped Stuart back onto his back with a dissatisfied grunt.

His chilly fingers wrapped around Stuart's tightly and, curling his hands around the boy's skinny wrist, Murdoc hissed as he moved the kid's arm up and down consecutively. "Sodding bastard," he grimaced with a moan, swaying the lifeless limp back and forth. However, with the unconscious kid now face up, Murdoc was certain that there was something amiss about the boy that he hadn't noticed before. There, in the white light of the hospital bulbs, Stuart's bruised eyes gave a slight twitch and even his lips trembled, despite his obvious delirium.

There was an oddly painful moan that emitted from the boy's parted mouth and, flinching, the boy gave a timid little groan before his eyes flickered open.

Horrified, Murdoc stumbled back. His arse slipped from the front of the chair and, sloppily, he found the floor within the instant. Stuart Pot, however, seemed almost unfazed. His face did not move further and, dazed, he seemed to only stare at the nothingness out before him. He had stopped moving completely, yet the sight of his face was enough even to make Murdoc Niccals uneasily squirm. In the sanitary white hospital bed, Stuart looked significantly damaged and a little out of place. His bruised eyes were crusted with sleep, however, only one of them appeared normal. On the other hand, Murdoc could not deny the black void that had overtook the boy's other pupil by storm. Whatever life had once flickered behind it beforehand was utterly and completely diminished.

Reeling back, Murdoc scrambled to regain himself back from his clumsy composure. "What the fuck?"

Yet he quickly apprehended the patient, leaning back towards him deviously and analyzing the fucked-up vision of his pitifully damaged visage. "Er... nurse?" the Satanist called out, feeling a bit uneasy in the sight of Stuart's unusual appearance. He flicked his wrist outwards, signaling for someone to attend to him as soon as physically possible. However, despite hearing the usual clip-clop of heels against the tile floor, he found that he was being rather rudely ignored. "Nurse! S-Something's not right 'ere..."

"What is it, Mr. Niccals?" The head of Stuart's doctor popped in vibrantly around the corner. He looked rather tired, by all means, and his face showed the signs of bitterness towards Murdoc completely. Although, despite his sourness, he caught on to the drained expression that Murdoc had given him and, reluctantly, he slipped forward into the clean room, clipboard in hand.

"What do you mean 'what is it'?" Murdoc rushed, extending a long finger forward at the sickly looking figure upon the hospital bed. "Just fucking _look_ at him!"

Casual, much to Murdoc's dismay, the doctor assumed a steady approach towards his patient's hospital bed. Gently, he set aside the clipboard and smoothed back Stu Pot's messy blue hair, exposing more of his innocent and clean shaven face. With his unusually azure hair pulled away from him, the opening of his eyes had become more obvious, though the doctor did not seem to react in the slightest. Although, despite the other man's calm stature, Murdoc Niccals felt a thick spasm rush up his crooked spine. "It seems Stu's opened his eyes," the professional said, still scrutinizing the mismatched pair; one void of pitch black, the other a bright shade of captivating blue.

Murdoc kept his significant distance. "So, what?" he asked, hopefully, "that means he's awake now? Job over?"

Sourly, the old man's face melted into a frown. He shook his head back and forth and straightened himself out mildly. However, in Murdoc's hazy delirium, he managed to finally catch a glimpse of the name scrawled across the whacky old bat's name tag: Dr. Herbert Osgood. "Mr. Niccals," Dr. Osgood said morosely, "it is not unusual for a catatonic patient to open their eyes at times. In fact, after some time, Stu might be able to be spoon fed."

"For fuck's sake..." Murdoc growled, allowing himself to trail off continuously.

"This is, however, the first time Stuart's shown any sign of awareness," Dr. Osgood noted. "Curiously enough, his first breakthrough occurred in your presence." For a moment, the man seemed to consider this and, mulling it over, he squared Murdoc Niccals up and down uneasily. Then, shrugging, he made his way towards the front of the door again, gesturing towards the above clock to signify that Murdoc's care time had only just ended.

But Murdoc's leaving time had been admittedly delayed, however. Still caught between the awkward phase of glaring curiously at the unconscious vegetable that was undoubtedly Stu Pot, he dizzily snatched up his heavy raincoat and waddled sloppily out the door, and back into the rain.

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**Psychic City: **Sorry it has taken me so terribly long to update this! Please submit a review to show me if you are still interested in the continuation! It would certainly make my day!


	5. Something of an Existence

**Psychic City:** Chapter five, finally! I would love to hear from you all: thoughts, questions, comments... constructive criticism? Anything is greatly welcomed!

Thank you for all the reviews on the past chapter. Special thanks to: **ryon, Dreamm Weaver, Le Candeh, Va Vonne, Kitkat313optonline, AkinaTakesona, MCLanna, **and** LivelyMcBrighten.** I appreciate all the comments greatly!

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**Chapter Five:**  
**Something of an Existence**

"So you're what," said a near by voice, rather close to Murdoc; perhaps too close for comfort. The voice, thickly accented, paused a moment to make sure he'd had the attention of the rest of the men at the table. Thus, readying himself up, he cleared his voice and continued, "you're like... a nanny now, Muds?" Slippery, his eyes moved towards the man at his right and watched him spastically as he tried to control his own fit of giggles that tickled the back of his throat. However, besides being incomprehensibly thick, the large man was also weak. Unable to stifle the laughter in his mouth, he doubled over, slamming his fist on the table, and erupted in a bout of dry chuckles. He did not seem to notice his partner's green fingers ball up into a tight fist underneath the table top. If one thing was for absolutely certain, it was the he, Murdoc Faust Niccals, was not anyone's babysitter.

The Satanist turned his black mop-toped head towards the shaking fat man, who had been far too caught up in his hand liquor to notice his steaming. Roughly, he narrowed his eyes together and lifted his fist, positioning it directly underneath the man's flabby chin. His teeth ground down furiously in his mouth and the man stopped, gazing down at Murdoc's hand with true fear. "Wot was tha' you said, Billy-Boy?" Niccals grumbled, flashing him a bitter smile and showing to him his jagged and rotting teeth.

Billy's eyes flicked around. There in the dimly lit pub, he knew that Murdoc Niccals would have absolutely no problem knocking him a good one. In the back of his mind, he knew that the bass player was, quite admittedly, rather psychotic. He glanced over towards the biggest of the three, Tiny, for help; yet he came up solo. Over the years he had known the deranged Murdoc, he had learned to stay on his good side. Besides, he'd ran over a living man, for fuck's sake. Thus, flinching anxiously, he held his massive hands up in a surrender. "Was nothin', Murdoc," he gulped, relived to find that Murdoc had snatched his hand away with a dissatisfied huff. "I was only just talkin' about that kid, is all."

Murdoc's face fell and, in the little light, he seemed to have aged quite significantly. At thirty-nine years old, the man looked as if he had seen a fair share of his more grueling days. Still, he sat upon his barstool sloppily, both defeated and very, very pissed off. But there was not much he could really do about his situation. After days of drawing up charts and thinking up theories, he had finally come to the conclusion that he was very much stuck in his situation with Stu-Pot. Thanks to his unreliable droogs, Tiny and Billy-Boy, he was in on it alone, as well. Bloody gits they were, leaving Murdoc to fend for himself, to take all the dirty work.

Tiny's large body flinched as he made a quick grab for his glass. Under the dangling pub light, Murdoc could make out the heavy black eye that circled his puffy eyes. With a swelling pride of satisfaction, Murdoc felt only a tad bit better at the thought of his useless mates getting exactly what they'd deserved. Although, the two of them seemed more fascinated with the subject of the Saturday boy, waiting carefully for their leader to answer them. He felt a pathetic burst of sorrow, mostly for himself, and rolled his tired eyes. Then, Murdoc Niccals took a big swig of his transparent alcohol. "Don't remind me."

Tiny nudged Billy-Boy in the ribs, a smile spreading off his fat face. Apparently, he had not gotten the gist of Murdoc's obvious anger. "Aw, look at 'im. Somebody's a bit angry..."

"Fuckin' right I'm a bit angry!" Murdoc roared, slamming his drinking cup on the table top, seething. The two men straighten up, once again hiding their amusement; as a pair, they'd found the bassist's situation more humorous than serious. "You should 'ave seen that bloody list!" Murdoc continued, breaking his hands apart to estimate the size of the thing. His chest rose, fell, and then rose again; perhaps wildly overheated by the topic of their conversation. He ran a hand through his hair, both bitter and miserable. Yet, his next complication of speech came out in a rather wuiet mumble. Sourly, he announced, "that fucking arsehole's ruining my life."

"Oi! Barbra!" Tiny shouted. He had exchanged looks with Billy-Boy, secret with their edgy little grins, and snapped wildly in the air to get the curvaceous working woman's attention.

Somewhere over in the corner of the dingy little place, the blonde woman stiffened. She was bent over in a curious manner, that tightened her arse in her jeans, but dually made her stomach pool over the edges of them. She turned her face over her shoulder and glanced over at the lot of three, spotting Murdoc's slouched body within the instant. Her mind rebooted itself- Murdoc Niccals, perhaps her best and most loyal customer. Better yet, he looked as if he were about to down the entire store in that very moment; she could tell just by the look in his unflattering eyes. Thus, a casual smile spread across her face and she whipped out her notepad with clear enthusiasm.

Barbra, who might have been once somewhat attractive, leaned down and positioned her palm squarely on Billy-Boy's broad shoulder, making him stiffen. His face reddened, though Murdoc had remained the only one to have truly gone all the way with Barbra in the first place. "Err," stammered Billy, nonetheless, "I, uh, think Mudsy 'ere is in dire need of something hard to drink."

The woman nodded, gladly, and shifted her weight. "Wot's it tha's got ya down, Muds?" she asked, already penning down an order of several drinks for the boys in her pad.

Tiny gave a joyful little chuckle. He took to ignoring the previous spat that had happened only minutes early and clamped a hand down hard on Murdoc's slumped shoulder. He answered for Murdoc, rather proudly. "'E's a babysitta' now, Barb." Then, smiling toothily, he turned towards his sizzling mate. "Ain't tha' righ', Murdoc?"

Still, Barbra didn't give Murdoc a chance to bash the foolish man's skull in. Her devious demeanor softened and she stopped chomping on her chewing gum for a moment to say sweetly, "aw, well tha's very nice a' you, Murdoc!"

The gloomy bassist slid down at the table, moaning and thrusting his throbbing head into his hands. His head hurt, thanks to that unconscious little brute. Stu Pot, with his stupid black eye and his rail of freshly missing teeth, was making Murdoc's life a living hell. And, just look at him! What was he doing in the late night at an empty pub with mates that he loathed? It was far too late to pick up on any birds, that was certain. No longer would Murdoc be free to troll the pubs in search of an easy catch for the night. No longer would Murdoc be just one lass closer to nailing every single chick in this bleeding town. He writhed with a brand new onset of furious anger. Stuart bloody Pot; he was ruining Murdoc Niccal's sex life.

"Trust me, Baarrrb," Murdoc drawled, glancing towards Tiny and shooting him a warning shot. "'S not by choice."

"Wot?" searched Barbra. "You fatherin' some young kid tha' I dun' know about?"

Murdoc's expression vividly shrunk, further igniting the grins of Billy and Tiny's faces. "Hardly," he spat.

But Barbra's curiosity only brought her so far. She hung around for a moment, waiting for him to explain, but came up empty handed. Thus, shrugging it off, she turned around on her heel, approaching the bar to grab the men their drinks. When she'd returned back, however, she arrived to the sight of an anxious looking Murdoc. His eyes were intensively glued to the ticking clock on the dark wall of the pub, and he looked torn between two ugly looking options. He mumbled something obscene under his liquor-laced breath. "Goin' somewhere?" Barbra asked, watching the clock, and then Murdoc, who quickly returned back to his own drink and downed it without a problem.

The bitter taste rushed through Murdoc's throat whirlingly, and he winced on impact. However, used to the burning sensation, he wiped his mouth dry and emitted a heart-felt swallow. "Shit," he groaned, and glanced up at Barbra, three drinks cradled in her hand like an odd professional.

"Yeah, Muds," Tiny croaked, grinning from ear to ear, "you act like, I dunno... like you've gotta be someplace early tomorrow or somethin'."

Bastards. Murdoc Niccals strode up from his seat and reached quickly towards one of the drinks, rapidly pouring it down the gaping hole of his open mouth within the instant. Then, without warning, he reached again towards Tiny's, doing the same. "Ay!" screeched the man, who had only just looked up in the midst of his laughter to see Murdoc now casually dive towards Billy-Boy's glass. But Murdoc was far too quick and, within moments, he'd finished the job for the two of them combined.

Stingily, Murdoc placed the last glass back on the table top, shoving it towards his foul mates bitterly. Then he leaned back down and snatched up his black coat in the process. "The bill's on them," he proclaimed sloppily and, with that, staggered towards the front door and out of sight.

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_Two Months Later... _

"Alright, Stu, just a little pinch. Not going to hurt a bit, promise."

In the mist of Stu Pot's white and hazy delirium, he heard the familiar voice of the same woman he'd been hearing for weeks. She sounded nice enough, though old, and whenever she leaned forward towards him, he got the scent of peppermint. She had soft and warm hands that were comforting and gentle as they wrapped around him, turning him over once in a while and fluffing the soft cloud behind his aching neck. This time, however, her hands moved quickly and rushed. She smoothed away the skin on his forearm and dabbed something against it that made him feel cold and empty. Then, with a sudden prick, she allowed something sharp and edgy to break through his skin; and it hurt. Internally, Stuart felt his head throb and a massive amount of bile rise in his chest. It hurt real bad, and she'd promised that it wouldn't...

And that's when Stu Pot realized that he didn't really know this woman or the other figures that visited him at all. While they whispered nice things in his ear and stroked his hair, they also paced around him, toying with his limbs and poking at his eye. They made him cold with wet sponges, and dressed and redressed him constantly; they put long tubes down his throat and gave him shots. They told his mother when she could come and go, and even once pulled her off of his bed at night, when really he was too scared to be alone. And when they all left him alone, where ever he was, Stu Pot felt like he was the only one existing in the entire world.

The old woman finally pulled the cold torn from Stuart's arm and she pet his wrist as if she were sorry. "See?" she said softly, still rubbing Stuart's weak and sore wrist back and forth, "that wasn't so bad, was it?" The sway of nausea floated around him, still persisting in his weary head. Obviously it had hurt, and she had lied; but Stu wasn't so much focused on the pain as he was on the concept of his sheer existence. Days went by where he saw nothing but white, or heard nothing but the sound of his own heartbeat. Those days, he could feel the thick edges of the tubes in his throat, the tight wrappings of whatever had been wound over his head, his torso, and his eye. On those days, he panicked, and called out, and cried; not a single person ever heard him.

The other days, where he felt himself less aware and, in turn, more numb, were the days that he could hear the voices. His mother's was the one that he'd initially recognized, and he felt comfort in the hours that she'd spend on his cloud reading him books, and magazines, and newspapers. She would reach down and position his throbbing head up against her lap and warm up his icy palms. But it was the other sounds that had taken him far longer to get used to. The old woman and a cluster of others were always at his side, telling him that they were "on his side", or that they were "rooting for him". The ladies would bend down and feel his face, feigning sweetness before they turned it all around on him.

Yet, still, it was one unique slur that had made him the most curious. The whiskey laced voice was one that Stuart only vaguely recognized, though he could not place a finger on it for the life of him. Most days, he heard the voice grumble as he broke into Stuart's personal space, nudging himself on his cloud as if it were a task. He did his job briefly and, for that Stuart found himself gracious for the man and his generosity. And Stuart had a theory, too; this miserable man was being forced. He did not want to hurt him with needles, sponges, and tubes. The people around him, they were making him do it. Despite his moaning, they handed him task after task, in turn making him furious with Stuart. But really, Stu couldn't help but feel sorry for the man. He didn't want him to be mad or angry with him. Instead, he wanted to snap his eyes open, or mutter and apology.

He was sorry that this man, whomever he was, was being forced to do something that he certainly did not want to do. The comatose boy knew- this man didn't want to hurt Stuart Pot. He just wanted to go home to his own house and live his life. And, for that, Stu felt that the two had very much in common.

The footsteps of the aged woman echoed throughout his ears. Even the sound of it made him envious. Everyone walked around him with their working legs; they spoke so easily and lived so casually. However, Stu was nowhere near being used to his new existence, and he wondered if he ever would be. Over the course of what he'd overheard had been weeks, he'd been flipped around and positioned constantly. His life was structural; around the same time he was certain he was fed, then drugged, and given shots. They'd run water over his torso and fiddle with the hole he felt gnawing at his head. Occasionally, they'd change the bags at his ankles and swap whatever it was around his head for something new.

When a couple more weeks had gone by, he had heard one of the voices declare him in a vegetative state. His mother was in the room, coddling his head and squeezing his fists. He'd recalled the conversation being jerky and tearful, as her body would flinch up against him with every profound sob. He wanted her to stop crying, because her crying only made him even more sad; but he managed to only sit there and listen as the voice of what Stu recognized as his childhood doctor say, "I'm sorry, Mrs. Pot."

"Proof!" he'd heard his mother yelp. She had only just been caught off guard by the doctor, who had broken her the news in a slow and vitally careful manner. His mother, Rachel, had allowed the book to slip from her hands and she'd reached for the plush teddy bear, fixing it tighter into her son's loose grip. "Y-You h-have no proof that he's... a-a _v-vegetable_!"

Dr. Osgood's long sigh echoed around Stu Pot's universe. He seemed to regain himself, knowing that the situation truly was a stingy one. "Mrs. Pot, Murdoc Niccals..."

"Oh, don't you dare start with me about _Murdoc Niccals!"_ For whatever reason or another, Stu knew that his mother did not like Murdoc Niccals in the slightest. However, Stu knew him as the voice- the one different from all the others. He remembered the name in a minute sort of manner, though nothing specific came to him. Yet, he managed to feel somewhat at ease around the man, despite his mother's blatant distaste towards him.

"Stu's behavior around him is, well, profound, to say the least," Dr. Osgood continued.

"I don't believe a word that comes out of that.. that _demon's _mouth!"

During the blurry mess that whirled through the conversation, Stu could feel his mother pull forward. She cuddled him closer to her chest, propping him up slightly so that he leaned on her for support. She replaced Stu's hands into hers and rubbed them as if she'd expected him to squeeze back. But his body only went along with the ride, as usual. He slumped around with whatever direction she'd led him in, mouth dangling open slightly. She sobbed the hardest at the times she had to reach down and wipe the drool from his face. Still, Dr. Osgood kept his pace. He cleared his throat, but sounded wearily distance. "He's been moving his limbs around Mr. Niccals the most... opening his eyes... muttering things!" he said. "I've seen it."

Rachel Pot sniffed loudly. She huffed, her large bosomed chest rising and falling with ever dramatic pump. She swallowed and shifted her own stature. Yet she released her grip on her son's limp arms and instead made a slow grab towards his lowered chin. Cupping his face, she stared into her son's bruised and closed eyes, inhaling readily. "Alright," she said cautiously, "come on, Stewie, come on. Mummy's here, okay? She wants you to wake up now... can, c-can you do t-that for mum?"

Aching and desperate, Stu Pot tried to wake himself up. He felt his eyes slip open, though the act was involuntary, as it had been so often. But he could see anything clearly. The vision of an overwhelming sense of white blocked out any possibility of seeing another figure, thus making him feel that much more alone. Helpless, he tried to yell something back and, though he felt his mouth move, not a single word escaped him. In his blurred sense of whiteness, he felt his eyes well up and water, but Stu Pot's body didn't move.

It took a while for Dr. Osgood to say anything. Yet, when he finally spoke, he said, "this is... common with patients in... in Stuart's condition. I-It's all involuntary. He's been grabbing for things, crying, groaning. He's experiencing sleep cycles." He didn't mention that Stuart had been screaming; the thought would have terrified her, and he didn't want her to know.

Rachel Pot, however, had stopped listening a long time ago. She remained focused on Stu, her one and only son, still trapped between a veil of unconsciousness. Her soft hands continued to hold up his chin, and she smoothed back his hair lovingly. After a while, she set his upper torso back down and fixated him on his back properly. She stuffed the silly toy bear underneath his arm and made sure that he was holding it close to his chest. Her hands wiped at her face, brushing her cheeks clear of tears before she curled back into him, this time resting her own head on his slender and boney chest. "You said," she hoarsely replied after a while, "that this is a good thing?"

Mulling it over, Dr. Osgood gripped tightly onto his clipboard. Stu was in for a bath at any moment, but he waited kindly to see that Mrs. Pot would regain herself. "It could very well be, Mrs. Pot."

"And he's been... been moving the most around Mr. Niccals?" There was a sense of hatred and hopefulness mixed into her broken tone.

"He's been smiling, even," noted Dr. Osgood, feeling happy to offer the woman any amount of hope.

Mrs. Pot gave a timid and defeated little twitch. "Well, then," she said carefully, taking one last look at her damaged son, "I'd... I'd like to try and work something out..."

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**Psychic City: **I'd love to hear from you all!


	6. Sleep Cycles

**Psychic City:** Thank you to all the people that reviewed for me in the last chapter! I appreciate:

**Zoye, AliceInBloom, ryon, xxSay, whats-up-people, Gimmie back that fillet o'fish, 2D Fan, Va Vonne, Lively McBrighten, LECandeh, **and more!

Next chapter will be posted as soon as possible- reviews definitely speed up this process, though. ;)

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**Chapter Six:**  
**Sleep Cycles**

When Mrs. Pot agreed to send her comatose son away to the home of the very man who put him in a vegetative state in the first place, she had certainly made up her mind about setting up a list of lengthy conditions. The first on the list, as approved by both the Pot's lawyer and doctor, was that alcohol use strictly banned. The second on the list, though just as important, was that drug use was also out of the question. Furthermore, Stuart Pot's progress had to be documented and recorded; Mrs. Pot would provide the book. However, when Murdoc Niccals woke up on a Sunday morning to the sound of a ringing doorbell, he stumbled out of his bed, drunker than a sailor, with his spidery green fingers hugging the circumference of a bulky yellowing joint. He staggered over the discarded mess of his shag carpet living room, groped towards the front door knob, and pulled it open with a forceful jerk before answering still tangled in the covers of his filthy sheets. Certainly, he had signed a contract agreeing to the rules set out by Stu Pot's mother, but at six in the morning, it had been foolish for them to have had expected him to be as such, anyways.

"Huh?" he grunted to the fat cop ironically holding a donut, who stood next to a stooped over blonde nurse. Synchronized, they raised their eyebrows at him in a judgemental manner before Murdoc Niccals glanced back at the joint. He leaned forward, nodding at the cop's jelly pastry and nudged him in the fluffy stomach. "I won' tell if you won' tell, 'ey, offica'?" he mumbled, trying out his early morning charm. The pudgy officer only held out his hand, plucked the thing from his fingers and scuffed it out briskly on the doorstep. Murdoc's smile, however, was not met with any sort of friendly expression in the slightest. "And wot 'ave we got 'ere?" Murdoc beamed.

The short woman at the police officer's side paid the bass player no attention. Instead, her arms worked wildly, still fidgeting with the wool blanket they'd drawn across Stu's crooked knees. The massive man answered for her. "It is Sunday morning, Mr. Niccals and, as you well know, this is Stuart Pot." He took great pleasure in watching Murdoc's face flicker from the pretty nurse, to the injured nineteen year old in an instant. The dramatic lines on his face seemed to double drastically. "'E's to stay two days and one night 'ere until Wednesday, where 'e'll do the same, and Friday."

Murdoc was not paying attention to the overweight cop and his monotonous reciting of the same schedule that he'd heard hundreds of times before. On the other hand, of course, he was paying close attention to the nurse, and watched her run her hands through Stu Pot's troublesome blue hair with a perplexed look on her soft face. She moved the longer pieces behind his ears and pushed the strays out of his distant looking face. And there Murdoc was, standing before her with barely anything on at all, and she had done nothing to truly acknowledge his presence. He decided instantly that she was a lesbian- she'd had to be, or she would have darted into his condo at the instant he'd opened his door. Though, her overwhelming fascination with the moron in the wheelchair still seemed to perplex him. _Perhaps not a lesbian_, he concluded, _perhaps immensely psychotic. _

And when finally the nurse lifted her hands from the figure of the unconscious kid, she only turned to the handles of his wheelchair, scooting him past Murdoc with a sense of careful belligerence that Murdoc had before considered completely impossible. The cop strode in past Murdoc, as well, his fingers finishing up with the last of his Danish, as he glanced around the home and scrunched his nose at the sheer sight of it. But Murdoc followed in behind them, glancing around the dump with a swell of pride that was all the more obvious before he remembered why it was exactly that he was up so early. Crushed, he watched Stu as he was wheeled to the center of the living room; felt discouraged even, as they hauled in a cardboard box labeled 'Stu' in after him. And, as he felt his shoulders drop with a swing of bitter resentment, he mumbled under his rancid breath, "for fuck's sake..."

"You 'ave your list, I'm assuming?" asked the bulky man, taking a step back towards the front door. He had been holding his breath since he'd entered the place, though Murdoc wasn't certain what it was that was so awful he was smelling.

"Yeah, yeah, I've go' the bloody list," Murdoc hissed back, flicking the pine tree air freshener that dangled from the cupboards in the nearby kitchen for emphasis. For as highly as they seemed to have carried themselves, they certain had no concept of any manners.

But the officer reeled back, "and you've check out all the 'ospital equipment?"

"'S been done, _mate_," Murdoc growled, ending hard as he sarcastically made a friendly gesture.

He had, however, done as he had been order to do involving the hospital equipment for Stu Pot. He'd went to the place, picked up the tubes and the needles. He'd even had to sit in a two-hour course class on how to inject the things into Stu's arm- as if he didn't bloody well know how to use a needle. He'd got the pills, the special foods, the fucking castrators; now all he'd needed was for them to leave his fucking house. "Well, tha's, tha', then," noted the policeman, and Murdoc Niccals pointed a steady hand towards the door. _Right, that's that_, his hungover head told himself, furious that they hadn't left already, _now out. _

However, much to his appreciation, they filed out in a pair; though the nurse did annoyingly glance back over her shoulder at Stu before Murdoc slammed the door shut in her small face. He turned around, inhaling the rotting air of his wonky little condo. The place wasn't anything much, but it served its purpose gracefully. In fact, Murdoc couldn't help but emit a smile as he roughly made his way over to Stu, glancing at all that reminded him of late nights, drinking games, and naked women all in the contents of his own personal Heaven. But there was Stu, snatching away his paradise with his simple presence alone. His skinny arms had been wound around Mrs. Pot's stupid little bear, and he looked as if he'd been dressed to attend a boarding school of all places.

Stu's bruised head lolled off to the side, his mouth opened slightly as his forehead leaned up against the edge of the wheelchair's back. He wore a pair of dark navy trousers, matched to a nicely pressed navy blazer. His tie, striped navy and yellow, dangled at his waif-like chest in the most blatantly useless manner. Without the safety of his sterile hospital bed, Stu Pot really looked as bluntly pathetic as a potato in the holds of the hospital chair. His bruised eyes loosely shut, he gave a little flicker before moaning, and then slumping back down even further in his seat. Bloody kid. Stupid, fucking git.

But all Murdoc had to do was stand in place, his hands dangling at his own sides for lack of utter comprehension. How had he, Murdoc Faust Niccals, ended up having to be the one looking out for this boy scout? He turned back to the desk at his right, snatching up a packet of cigarettes before jamming it between his rack of crooked teeth. Surely they had someone far more professional out there able to do the job, didn't they? As Murdoc made his way slowly towards the chair, he recalled Dr. Osgood saying something about Stu's interest in Murdoc's visits. Something about eye opening, and smiling, and sleep cycles. But that was back when Murdoc Niccals was happy to just get out of the hospital visits everyday. Back then, he would have feigned interest in anything just to avoid ever having to enter the place again. _So_, he thought angrily, _sleep cycles._ But who really gave a shit, anyway? Stu-Pot, he was as useful as a sack of cement and he was never going to wake up.

Murdoc really glanced the boy over for the first time in the day. He squared the kid up and down before taking to a daunting pace around him. And he had to admit, he truly had made quite the mess out of Stu Pot's face. Though it appeared as if Mrs. Pot had tried to comb her son's blue hair in a proper presentable manner, Stu's visible visage only stuck out more so. Thus, grinning bitterly, Murdoc smashed a finger up against Stu's lips, pulling the top one up forcefully to reveal a set of missing front dentures. It was all that his mummy could do to make her son appear more physically appealing through all the scrapes. He'd noticed with a chuckle at the sad bandage attempts someone had made to his wrists, and he flicked Stu's arms out from his lap and watched him dangle responsively with the restraints holding his slouchy body upright.

Nonetheless, Murdoc crouched to a squat and ripped open the cardboard box before he could contain himself. His fingers found the empty journal that he was supposed to record Stu's progress with first, and he tossed it over his shoulder in the searching process. Instead, he pried at the zombie films Rachel Pot had neatly packed inside, laughing spastically. Surely she hadn't expected Murdoc to sit down and actually _watch _the things with her vegetable of a son. However, upon further investigation, he found that she had expected such, and perhaps even more. Amongst the box of rubbish, she had also stashed a handheld 1977 Tomy Blip pong game. "Sorry, Stuuu Pot," Murdoc drawled, breathing his mass amount of white cigarette smoke into Stu's unmoving face, "looks like you'll be pong free for a long while." Then, whole-heartedly, he tossed the little machine back into the stash of nothingness.

He slipped his hands up and dragged the list off the table and, by the looks of it, Stu Pot was due to be fed. Murdoc's mismatched eyes found the dual cans of carrot and pea baby food, and he felt his stomach drop. Thus, he squared away his jaw and pried himself back up from the shag carpet stiffly. His fingers found the cigarette in his mouth and he took another drag on it, blowing the air once again into Stu's swollen face. He looked at the skinny kid, and then back at the food cans. Then he remembered that it was six thirty in the early hours of the morning.

He flicked the particles of cigarette ash to the ground and rubbed them into the floor with the ball of his extended big toe. Then, with one last and lengthy drag, he overstepped the box and outed the thing once and for all. "Looks like you're on your own, Stu Pot," he mumbled, and retreated back into his bedroom and back to bed.

* * *

There was something strangely amusing about sleep cycles that made the comatose Stuart Pot feel as if he were both floating and sinking all at the same time. He slept through his nightmares like a miserable rock, unable to move or pinch himself to prevent them. But his coming up was something miraculous; curious even, as the rising bubbles seemed to surface him like some washed up and wasted body. The morning that he had felt himself seated upright had been a particularly fearful one, however, for Stu, who had just emerged from a nightmare just as suddenly. He could feel the harsh restraint of straps across his chest, and the aching pinch of something sharp around his neck. His stomach growled and the space around him was silent. Nothing moved, and no one noticed Stu's eyes flicker dreamily open.

Though he certainly saw without truly seeing a thing, the comatose kid remained untouched, useless to the world around him in front of a box of his closest belongings. The handheld pong set and the zombie films sat in a cluster, watching up at him as if he were to dart for them at any second. In the box sat a lovely melodica, having been unnoticed by Murdoc Niccals hours before, as well as a set of logo-laced shirts. There had been a blanket packed in with the rest of the bunch and, as if by accident, a locked little journal that had been pressed up to the side of the cardboard complex.

Yet the unresponsive Stu, very much like a bag of cement, sat sack-like, waiting for the outside world to continue on without him. And so it did. As if uncharacteristically on cue, Murdoc Niccals stumbled out from his bedroom, pulling his trousers shut over his hips, and swearing loudly under his breath. "Fuck." In the moment that Murdoc's greasy hands took hold of Stu Pot's lifeless body, the comatose kid gave way, fumbling from the unstrapped restraints and landing with a thud on the carpet below him. With his barefoot, Murdoc lifted up the side of the boy's chin and cocked it upwards back towards him. He took in the sight of the zombie-like face,Though for a moment, Murdoc only stood analyzing the rag-like thing, so flimsy and lifeless without any type of support. And perhaps it was because he had been higher than a bloody kite, but he stopped and took time to ponder the state of being in a coma.

Maybe it was best, he decided, that the world had to lose one Stuart Pot. The boy was too skinny to be a professional fighter, and too presumably too slow to work anywhere else besides Uncle Norm's, anyway. Murdoc's face scrunched at the sight of a stack of photo albums, to which Rachel Pot had scribbled a short little note. Plucking up the massive book of Pot family photos, Murdoc hastily read, _"the life you ruined." _before tossing the scrap over his shoulder carelessly. He fumbled through the laminated prints, staring at pictures of Stu, clad in his school uniform, baby teeth freshly missing, and smiling back at the camera lens. He scowled at the little boy, glaring at a picture of him by the Christmas tree on the twenty-fifth, pajamas and all in front of a brand new keyboard. A more recent photograph showed Stuart Pot, freshly blue-haired, and seated on the lap of his father at the control box of a ferris wheel. Certainly, it had been more than blatantly obvious that Rachel Pot had put a hefty amount of time and effort into compiling the pictures together in order to make Murdoc Niccals feel some sort of guilt.

However, Murdoc only felt rather disgusted; embarrassed, even, for the unconscious kid in the wheelchair before him, who was helpless to close the humiliating book before it had been opened. The Satanist watched the images, wide-eyed and convinced; Stuart Pot had been perhaps even more of a ponce that he, Murdoc, had previously anticipated. His theories were confirmed by the hundreds of pictures of the more recent Pot kid, standing in the yard with a small child in his hands, laughing widely; a snapshot of Stu at what looked like a prom, lacing a flower around the wrist of a short and chubby blonde in a dress that fit her too tightly. There were the classics of the kid on a tree, on the slide of some playground, or on the lap of some falsified Santa Clause. There were the strange of Stu in a wonky little knitted sweater, an embarrassed look on his face with his mother's arm looped proudly around his shoulders.

He saw the pictures of Stu, overly skinny in a pair of ironically blue swim trunks, his azure hair wet and slicked back behind his ears with his fingers around the end of a hose filling up a blow-up pool for a group of spastic little kids. The last photos grew more and more recent; Stu at a piano recital, Stu with his arm wound around the shoulders of some girl who looked absolutely fascinated with him, Stu handing out balloons at a shitty looking carnival, Stu in glasses, Stu eating breakfast, Stu brushing his bloody fucking teeth.

From the pictures, Murdoc's sense of distaste only seemed to grow. He shut the book heavily, and placed it on the surface of his coffee table with bitter resentment. Then his mismatched eyes founf the outline of his own camera in the dark. Sure, the thing was merely a piece of shit, but it took photographs just as well as any old camera. Thus, he passed the pair of baby food cans and made foe the camera anxiously, gripping it tightly in the spidery confines of his fingernails. How about the life that Stuart Pot had ruined? Had Mrs. Pot never stopped to thing about that? Her own selfishness, however, seemed to have clouded her head, for she had not considered Murdoc's existence either. Thus, furious, he knelt down low and cocked up the chin of Stu Pot, whose eyes stared forward at Murdoc, though there was not an ounce of awareness behind either of his discolored pupils.

"Smile!" Murdoc hissed, clicking the top of the camera and igniting a harsh flash into the pale face before him. Stu didn't even flinch. The dangling trail of spit dangled loosely from his limp mouth and, with that, Murdoc let his forehead thump back to the carpet again.

Sure, maybe the world had lost its Stuart Pot. But, after he had considered all things, at least there would always be one Murdoc Niccals.

* * *

**Psychic City: **Sorry that this was a chapter that was a little bit on the shorter side, but I'm working on making the upcoming once longer and more eventful! Please don't hesitate to let me know what you think! All types of feedback are appreciated!


	7. Best Mates

**Psychic City:** Just as a side note, Barbra the pub waitress is not an OC. Well, in the sense that she doesn't really exist in the Gorillaz world, she is; but she's only in the story for flow purposes, and not to end up with any of the characters. I personally have a hard time reading stories with OCs, so I wouldn't do that to you, in turn. It's not that I have anything against them in the long run, I just find them to be annoying. But! Now I'm rambling. Sorry, you can choose to ignore everything I said because the main point of it was only just: Barbra is not someone necessarily vital.

OH! And for an important note: I did mean catheter, no castrator in the previous chapter. WordWrytha pointed this out to me and I nearly laughed for several minutes straight. What a stupid mistake on my own part. Please, ignore my stupidity. I'd tell you that I was writing in a rush, but that doesn't excuse such an unfortunate mistake. As WordWrytha pointed out, castration would put poor 2D in a very bad situation.

Thanks to everyone that review in the previous chapter. I am so overwhelmed with the responses. Thank you: **Le Candeh, Va Vonne, Lively McBrighten, MCLanna, AkinaTakesora, ShetanBandit, Wordwrytha, HikaxKaoxLovies, **and **XxproperxsadxladyxsilentxX.**

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**Chapter Seven:  
****Best Mates**

Tiny and Billy-Boy were seated at the pub booth, heads tilted in the same direction, contemplating the round heart shape that was Barbra the waitress' massive arse.

It was Ladies Night at the pub, the boys' most favourite of nights, and they watched Barbra snap up and turn around to face them, her lopsided belly almost dangling out from her too-tight trousers. "You know who would 'ave love this?" Tiny said after a while, still perplexed with the questionable beauty that only shone like a faint ghost behind Barbra's strong wrinkles. She walked behind the crowd of other young women, a mixture of both ugly and attractive, fat and waif-like.

"Who?" grunted Billy-Boy, whose attention had been glued to the chest of another woman, busty and slender at the same time. She sat alone at the bar, fiddling with her brunette hair and every so once in a while taking antsy glances around the room. She may have been alone, but she still looked as if she wouldn't have given Billy or Tiny even the slightest of her spare time.

"Muds." Tiny replied back with a shrug, downing the last of his drink and turned solemnly to his spare. The two men sat alone, their only company found in their liquor glasses. They had dressed in their best to invite any willing female, while in the back of their minds they knew that Murdoc would more than likely not be joining them in the night. In fact, Murdoc had been avoiding the pub as much as possible, drinking to excess in the confines of his own condo. He had told the boys that getting out of the house was utterly impossible; unless he wanted to be caught wheeling the comatose Stu Pot around. But neither Billy nor Tiny had seen Murdoc with the kid since the accident. They heard about the unconscious boy only from stories from Murdoc, who retold stories of him with disgust. That bloody kid sure was putting a damper on their possibilities of getting laid.

So, quite pathetically alone, Tiny and Billy-Boy sat in a slump, their sad little pickle only growing worse. Murdoc, as filthy as he was, had been a God send when it came to birds. Or, at least, he had been compared to Tiny and Billy. In his absence, they admired the memory of him and how he used to nab the best girls from across the room. It was as if he could sense an intoxicated woman from a distance. He could sit and wait for hours, watching her as she downed questionable amounts of liquor and, at times, he'd even order her more glasses secretly. Then, when he was certain her vision was impaired enough, he'd bounce up from the table and slither on over to her instantly. He'd offer her a hand, his coat, and a warm bed to sleep in. It was a consistent feat that always seemed to impressed Billy and and Tiny, as they'd watch him bring her near their table, followed by a lot of two willing friends. Murdoc Niccals, bless him. Still, the both men fucking loathed him then for his unfriendly absence.

"Bloody tossa'," Billy-Boy groaned in response to Tiny, who nodded feverishly in agreement. On cue they downed their drinks, glaring at the lot of attractive men, rubbing their physical advances in their face. Tiny and Billy-Boy, they hated attractive men- hated them with an intense passion. But at that moment, they hated Murdoc Niccals even more.

However, much to their bewilderment, the front door of the pub creaked slightly open and, slipping into the room, they saw his shadow. Hunched, and erie, the mop topped man glanced around the pub before emerging into the space further. "Muds?" choked Tiny, whose drink dribbled down the front of his flustered red face. He titled his head in examination, watching the outline as he stalked through the open space of the dingy little area. His fingers were wrapped around the handles of something with wheels, though there had been a stained white sheet over it, covering whatever it was underneath entirely. In Murdoc's nervous delirium, he shot a wink at a curious-looking woman, sighted his friends, and slunk towards the booth in a hurry.

When he reached the table, he flopped down next to Tiny, said not a word, and ran his filthy hands through his messy black hair. Exhaling, he then pried a piece of forgotten food from the space in his jagged teeth before catching sight of the curious looks on both of his mate's faces. "Wot?"

"Wot d' ya' mean 'wot'?" Tiny grunted, watching Murdoc reach for his glass, though he did not object. "I thought you weren't comin' round 'ere anymore."

"Ah," shrugged Murdoc, redirecting himself instantly. He sucked in and grabbed for Billy's glass, scraping it up from the surface of the table without much effort. "I changed me mind abou' tha'," he gulped, wiping his mouth clean before sliding the empty cup back in Billy's direction.

"Wot do ya' mean you've changed ya' mind about it?" scuffed Tiny again, raising a thick eyebrow.

"I mean," hissed Murdoc, giving Tiny an intense glare that made the man reel back slightly, "I've changed me mind." Then, sniffing, he grossly wiped his runny nose on the sleeve of his outstretched shirt. "Anyway," he added, "I've figure a way out of my, err, predicament." Without saying a word, Murdoc stared only at the front of the bar, his eyes scanning the place continually. He did not further explain himself. Instead, he seemed to be already on the prowl, greedily waiting until he could spot some woman to bother hounding. He ignored the confused looks sent to him by both of his mates, gape-mouthed and wondering. For several silent moments, Tiny and Billy-Boy retracted back questionable glances; back and forth at one another dimly, they considered wether or not to actually ask what, exactly, Murdoc had done to wriggle his way out of his nurse work.

But Billy and Tiny's eyes wandered from Murdoc to the blanketed heap at his right. Spread out over the human-like lump, Murdoc's own dirty bed sheets had cloaked the figure securely. Once again, they exchanged inquisitive glances, shrugging wildly back and forth at one another. Though, it was Billy who garnered enough courage to continue pressing the subject. Chewing on his bottom lip anxiously, he was the first to mutter something at all.

Finally, he asked out loud, "err, Murdoc?"

Murdoc sniffed and casually scratched the side of his sickly green face. He did not break away his gaze from the women at his front; seemingly enough, he appeared to have found his target. "Yeah." he asked blankly, not bothering to even lift his head.

"Err, uhm, wot's tha'?"

"Wot's wot?"

"Tha'." Billy held his fat finger out in front of him as if wielding a weapon. The look on his face marked his scrutiny, though the expression appeared to slightly pain him. With his thick eyebrows crunched downwards, the messy expression on his face made him appear perhaps even more dim-witted than ever. Yet, despite this, Billy's outburst seemed to certainly grab Murdoc's forgotten attention. He narrowed his eyes and followed the direction of Billy's arm. When the bass player's vision found the end of Billy's sausage-like fingers, he found himself staring back at the sheet covered hump at his side.

Murdoc breathed in, looking the thing up and down before contemplating an answer. He considered ignoring the question, but generally found it almost further impossible to do so. Thus, he squared away his shoulders, regaining himself and his flattened composure. Sure, once he'd loaded Stu Pot back up in his wheelchair, draped some sheets over his head, and pushed him in the disguise out the door, he hadn't really thought about what he was planning on doing with the kid afterwards.

For fuck's sake, all he wanted to do was get laid.

Thus, adjusting himself, Murdoc stiffened his posture and glanced over at the sheets, locking his eyes in with it sternly. Of course the unconscious kid _would_ go and do something stupid like give himself away at a time like this. Murdoc Niccals' resentment fired away profoundly. "Oh," he stated, "tha's, uh, tha's..."

But Billy lunged forward, slipping himself out from behind the table diligently. He ignored Murdoc as he trailed on, considering on how to properly end the conversation without much success. The large man crept around the front, his hands reaching out. Though timid at first, once he reached the front of the white lump, he arched forward and lifted the corner of the bed blankets up carefully. "Tha's your solution?" he said timidly. Then his face broke out in a shiny smile that made large dimples appear at the side of his puffy face. Amused, he almost toppled backwards, aching from the laughter that boiled up in his stomach. Tiny watched curiously, noting the red tint that had overtook Murdoc's visage instantly. He cocked his head forward curious as Billy whipped the covers from off of the thing entirely. "Tha's your 'way out of your predicament'?"

With the blankets pulled off of the figure, it was Tiny's turn to bubble with laughter. Beer sputtered out from his lips and splashed about the table top wildly. He slammed his fist down, clamping a hand on the back of Murdoc's shoulders with whole-hearted aggression. Stu Pot, slumped over and only half strapped into his seat, looked as unaware and as unconscious as ever. His thin frame hung loose in the seat and he was wearing a thin gray sweatshirt without a hood or a zipper. The thing was stretched out over his shoulders in an oversized manner and the sleeves dangled over his long limbs. It looked as if he had been dressed in a rush, as well; he wore a pair of plain black pajama pants and a pair of shaggy orange converse that Murdoc had left untied.

Besides being unbearably pale, the right side of Stu's face was red with carpet burn, and his blue hair looked as if it had been styled by a quick run in with the ground. He still bore the scars of the crash night, though several bandages covered up the more visible ones. Even next to Murdoc, who himself looked as if he had dressed in a hurry, Stu looked perhaps more ready for bed, then a night out at a busy pub. "For fuck's sake, Muds!" cried Billy, still howling with laughter. He pinched the boy's chin, lifting his face upwards and examining him in the light. His scrutiny lasted only a few moments, however, before he dropped the boy's face, and stumbled back again giggling.

Tiny dabbed at his eyes, his free hand clutching his side. "Why's he in his pyjamas?" Murdoc mumbled something bitterly under his breath. Truthfully, the gray sweatshirt had been perhaps the most appealing thing Murdoc could find in the wardrobe box Rachel Pot had packed for her son. Other than the uniform-like outfit he'd arrived in, a Superman pyjama shirt, and a striped button-up, Murdoc really didn't have much to choose from. However, rather than speak out in his defense, he only lifted his fingers, snapped them, and mumbled that he badly needed something to drink.

"I'll say!" roared Tiny, taking hold of the handles on Stu Pot's wheelchair. He turned the boy with a riot, positioning him and the chair in a much closer spot near Murdoc. Stu gave a slight groan and his head lolled from one side. "Oh, bloody hell!" coughed Tiny, "'e's a riot!"

"'E is not!" objected Murdoc, "'e's a fucking _vegetable." _Then, to further expel any of their amusement, he scrunched up his nose and said dismissively, "'e sits there an' rots."

Billy-Boy doubled over, his meaty hands clutching the edge of the table before him. He ignored Murdoc's scowl, well into his chuckling to pay it much attention, anyways. Tears swelled up in his eyes and he tried to catch his havering balance. "Well," he said, shaking, "'e may not be a riot to you, but I find 'im bloody brilliant!"

Murdoc ground his teeth furiously and Billy backtracked to grab a spare seat from one of the scattered tables behind him. Instead of returning to his seat at the cushioned booth next to Tiny, he plopped down on the wooden chair and rearranged himself next to Stu Pot at his right. When he had himself all settled, he took to lifting his hand again, squeezing Stu Pot's face together by his cheeks. The face he gave Stu made him look like an uncomfortable and bruised-looking fish. "Well, look on the bright side, mate," he said, itching to bust over with laughter yet again, "at least 'e's a pretty one, ain't 'e?"

"Yeah, Muds," chimed Billy-Boy, tilting his head to get a better look at the kid. It had been the first time that either of the men had seen Stu since the car accident, though then he had been covered in a pool of his own blood. Perhaps a bit more presentable, Stu Pot did look a whole lot better. "'E's a bit _too _pretty, don't ya think?" Billy remembered how much he hated attractive men and though, with a second sense of amusement, that Stu Pot deserved to be a vegetable.

"'E's a fucking ponce," Murdoc noted, cocking his chin back at the kid bitterly. All things considered, Stu Pot was quite pretty, a fact that seemed to annoy Murdoc to no end. His shaggy head of blue hair hung low across his tainted face and, when his eyes opened, Murdoc found himself reminded back to every single Brit-pop band in the history of England. He found himself disgusted, with both the boy and the horrible situation, for the millionth time since he'd laid eyes on him.

Billy lifted up Stu Pot's limp arm, examining it closely. He pulled back the long sleeves and checked his scared arms, letting his hands flop back into his lap conclusively. He contained his laughter as he did so, biting his lip while he moved up to the boy's head, pulling out a strand of blue hair and snorting. But Tiny's tilted head jerked back towards Murdoc and he smiled when he asked, "wot's it you do with 'im all day?"

"Wotever that bleedin' list tells me to do with him, you arsehole." Murdoc quipped.

Tiny turned back away, a perplexed look on his sadistic face. He relished in the fact that the boy, perhaps once fairly smooth with talking to women, was now nothing more than a lifeless entity. The more he pondered the circumstances, the louder his voice echoed. In hopes of somehow reaching the boy's consciousness, he asked Murdoc, "'Ow's he go t' the bathroom?"

"Catheter." Murdoc's face fell, feeling more and more in need of a nice cup of brandy. Or a towering glass of rum. Or a Bloody-fucking-Mary. Or the lot.

Tiny's smile broadened a bit more. He held enjoyment in knowing one small humiliating fact about the pathetic little figure. "'Ow's he eat?"

Murdoc's face morphed into a scowl, his eyes narrowing drastically. He stared at Stu Pot, and then back at Tiny. The look of deep misery shone on his face and he looked aggressive as he balled his fingers up into two nice looking fists. "'E's _fed_."

Billy dove under the seat of Stu Pot's wheelchair, pulling out a single can of baby food, once again unable to contain himself. He slammed the jar on the top of the table, kicking his feet and wiggling around, rather worm-like. "No shit!" he announced, shoving the mushed food in Tiny's direction, thus further allowing Tiny himself to join him in his amusement. Only Murdoc sat fuming, though he had given up on attempting to quiet his mates. Who'd he been kidding? It was Stu Pot he was mad at in the first place. The wanker had been making things difficult for him since day one.

"Fuckin' hell," Murdoc breathed, "you should see him try to down just two bites of tha' shite. Dribbles down his face like a fucking lunatic! Most of the time 'e just sits there until someone massages it down his fucking throat." This sent a chorus of laughter around the table from all but Murdoc, whose grip loosed from his tightly wound fists. In his seat he seethed, staring away from Stu Pot, who sat helpless as Billy-Boy plucked carelessly at his limbs.

In his ear, Tiny's booming laughter thundered off at him. But Murdoc's patience was running thin and, as the chucking picked up in his ear, the small amount of it he had left instantly ran out. Without warning, he lunged forward, arching his torso with full intensity as he swooped unexpectedly forwards. Surging forward, he grabbed the neck of the nearest friend he could find and his fingers snapped around Tiny's large throat like a snake, watching as his eyes bubbled out widely.

Billy froze, dropping Stu Pot's face while loosing any trace of colour in his own. Tiny's throat emitted a meek yelp, and his large hands worked their was up to his neck in a sad attempt to pry away Murdoc's vengeful hand. The bassist showed Tiny his teeth. His eyes glistened with resentment and he hissed, "wot's so funny?"

With Murdoc's fingers wrapped around his throat, Tiny made a slight attempt to speak up, though failed within the instant. His face blued over the passing moments, and Murdoc made no attempt to let his grip slacken. "N-N-Nothing, Muds," squealed Billy from across the table, who spoke for Tiny instead. "W-W-We wos j-jus' kidding!"

"Tha' true?" slithered Murdoc, whose tongue slipped from his mouth. He looked as if he were ready to devour Tiny at any given moment, though the people of the pub seemed far too intoxicated to notice. "Hm, Tiny, mate?" Lifelessly, as if he were only just about to pass out, Tiny's fat face gave a quick bob up and down. His eyes became unfocused and, just before he was certain to loose consciousness, Murdoc released his grip and flopped back down hastily into his seat. He crossed his arms over his chest and ignored Tiny's raspy breaths as he tried to catch some air. However, over his foolish mate's pathetic inhales, Murdoc growled, "I need a drink." With that, he lifted his fingers and snapped them in the air readily. "Oi!"

Barbra's flabby figure turned around slightly, joyful at having noticed Murdoc in the corner. Her smile doubled on her overly made up face and she locked eyes with him intently, showing him her white teeth. Her flashy green eyes noticed Billy, who was up and chuckling, though his massive body blocked the view of something shadowed. Then she found Tiny, too, his face red with hysterics; all the while, Murdoc's posture remained blatantly slumped. The unamused expression he wore on his tired face lit her up and, curious, she approached the table with a sway of her hips.

She popped her gum. "What's gotten into you, Muds?" she moaned, looking sad as she put on a pouty face, "'aven't seen yah round 'ere in ages and now ya' show up lookin' bloody awful."

"Yeah, well," came Murdoc's only reply. "Just bring me something expensive." He cocked a thumb towards the still wheezing Tiny, "'e's buyin'."

Just as the permed blonde readied herself to spin around, she noticed a certain blue haired shadow at Murdoc's side. She paused, considering him for a moment, before turning back around to face the three men. "Got a new friend, Muds?" she asked, a girlish giggle to her otherwise flat sounding tone. Tiny writhed in his seat, a hot flush running through his face. He resisted excusing himself from the table and dragging the comatose kid by the hair along with him. However, instead of action upon impulse, he remained put, fearful that Murdoc might still knock his precious lights out.

"Hardly," Murdoc frowned, glancing back at Barbra with a sour expression.

"'E looks like he's 'ad a bit too much to drink for the night," she smiled, serious despite her tickled grin. She was not facing Murdoc or either of the men. Instead, she seemed to enjoy staring back at Stu, despite his closed eyes and parted mouth.

Billy-Boy shook his head, ready to smash any possible hope that Barbra had in perhaps taking Stu Pot home with her. "'E's hasn't drank a single thing tonight, Barb, and 'e's not drunk. 'E's a vegetable."

Barbra's shoulders slackened. Her haze dropped and she shifted her eyes back over to Murdoc, gaping. "So _this_ is the 'nanny' thing, huh? Your new occupation?" she asked, enlightened. However, she did not remain looking at Murdoc for long. Instead, she strode away from the front of the table and passed Billy-Boy with soft apprehension. Then she stood in front of Stuart, analyzing him with a delicate and caring expression. She no longer looked like an old pub waitress. She looked almost young, as if her youthful good-looks had finally made a first appearance. She squatted down, tilting her head at Stu Pot and placing a hand on his own clammy one. "You're taking care of a comatose boy?"

Murdoc's eyebrow rose in confusion. Both Billy and Tiny looked down at Barbra, horrified. "That's, uh... that's what the court ordered," Murdoc stumbled, still unsure as to what Barbra was getting at. However, her polished fingernails brushed aside the blue hair from Stu Pots face and, daintily, she bent low enough to tie up Stu's unlaced converse. "Barb?"

The moment she touched his chilly face, he gave a sad little moan and his eyes slowly fluttered open. Barbra looked taken aback. "Oh," she gasped, taking one look at his black eye and letting her heart sink. She trailed her fingers up to it, gently touching the space around it as if trying to heal it. "You poor thing," she sighed, watching Stu Pot, whose eyes remained unfocused and glossy.

Watching, Murdoc raised his voice slightly. Stu Pot's eye opening was something that had been occurring far more often than usual. A sight that had once given Murdoc hope, only now took to annoying him. Yet the waitress' fascination sent a jealous chill run up his spine. He coughed, "Barb."

"Yeah..."

Murdoc's eyes twitched. He'd fucked Barbra twice and not once had she ever looked at him like that. And it wasn't that he was offended, because he was definitely not in love with Barbra the pub waitress, but it was just the bloody principle! For fuck's sake- Stu Pot was a useless fucking vegetable. Still, Murdoc flickered back and forth between feeling utterly and completely resentful, and furthermore righteously confused. He watched her admire Stu Pot, ignoring the scars on his face, the big gray sweatshirt, and the mashed food cans at his feet. She didn't even seem slightly bothered by the black pupil and the dent at the side of the boy's skull.

Murdoc recrossed his arms, analyzing her furiously. "Can I get something to fucking drink this century?"

"Oh," Barbra blinked, bringing her hand away. She glanced back up at the three men, her eyes spilling over slightly. But there was a youthful smile on her face that made the men curious and envious at the same time. All she said was, "yeah," and with that, she left in a daze, leaving the men to their broken senses.

They cocked their heads towards the figure and sat in silence. Stu Pot's hazy eyes stared off in the distance, wet and unfocused. His slender chest rose and fell with slight breath, and his blue hair hung across his face lifelessly. He looked forlorn and forgotten, a sheepish kid of nineteen, who shouldn't have even been allowed in the pub in the first place. He looked a mess, mentally challenged even, and yet the vivacious woman couldn't keep her hands off of him. In fact, after a quick glance around the room, the three men noticed that Barbra had grouped together a cluster of four other females. Their eyes locked directly with the sunken Stu Pot, they wore a set of matching smile across their young faces. After a while, Billy-Boy choked out, "wot the in the hell."

Tiny's equally fat face crumpled distinctively. He glanced away from Stuart Pot, a curious look on his face. "Wot are they looking at?" he asked, terrified. Self-conscious, he smelt his underarm pits and scanned the front of his shirt to see if he had spilled anything on it.

Murdoc didn't answer him. Instead, he focused his eyes on Stu Pot, clad in his foolish sweatshirt and newly tied converse shoes. Then he glanced up at the group of women. Other than Barbra, the lot of them were young, attractive, and giggling; a sight Murdoc very often loved to see. They dressed slutty, looked slutty, and acted slutty. All at once, Murdoc's confused atmosphere cleared up; the fog that had clouded his hindsight vastly parted. Perhaps bringing Stu Pot around wasn't exactly the worst idea he had come up with.

Thus, he straightened up his shirt and fixed his sloppy posture, leaning forward and grabbing Stu Pot's limb wrist. He lifted it in the air and waved for the comatose boy, signaling to the girls a friednly hello. Their smiles broadened and, drinks in hand, they exchanged giddy glances before waltzing over towards the men feverishly. "Wot'd I tell you, boys?" Murdoc said out from the side of his mouth, an ambitious smile spreading across his own green face, "Murdoc Niccals is a bloody genius."

* * *

"And so, yeah," Murdoc Niccals drawled, drunken in his step with his free arm around the waist of a hiccuping redhead, "Stuart here was covered in blood. Masses of it, eh. Picking him up and carrying him that five miles to the hospital was... well, it was the least I could do."

In the dim street lights of the sleepy little town, Murdoc, Tiny, Billy-Boy, and three other women stood at the front doorstep of Murdoc's dingy little condo. They paid no attention to the wrecked state it was in. Only, their focus seemed to flick back and forth between Murdoc and Stu Pot, who had remained almost completely silent the entire night, other than the sad moans he would unknowingly emit aloud. Still, Murdoc's previous aggression with the kid had flopped. While before he found himself rather annoyed with Stu's presence, at that moment, he couldn't have been more proud. Proudly, he pushed along Stu's wheelchair with a cocky smile and a pompous sway. Certainly the girls had drank themselves silly, but Stu Pot's presence had certainly helped matters.

The redheaded girl pulled on her barely-there sequenced tank top. Her blue eyes locked into Murdoc's mismatched ones and, pulling her hair out of her face she said girlishly, "what would he have done with out you?"

Murdoc shrugged, so casual in his conversation. He didn't even have to try to coax her in. She believed every word of it. "He would have died, probably," he suggested, and the girl dropped her hands down to Stu's blue head, murmuring about how lucky he was that Murdoc Niccals was around to save his life. As she changed her focus, Murdoc glanced behind his shoulder, winking at Tiny and Billy-Boy, who had followed him home, their own gawking birds looped around at their sides. He laughed at their bewilderment, red in the face with joy as the intoxicated women tickled under their flabby chins and cuddled their protruding bellies. Never before had getting the two a date been so easy.

Still, the bassist considered the redhead. Her name was Cherry and Murdoc had even managed not to laugh when she'd told him so. Instead, he put on a gentlemen's smile, refraining from further inquiring if the carpet truly did match the name. In fact, he was far too impressed with himself to try and mess the situation up, anyways. Furthermore, he basked in his glory of accomplishment. Bringing the vegetable along had been a great idea- no, a brilliant one. For his effort and success, he promised himself that he would be significantly rewarded.

Blissful, he pulled open the door of his condo and gestured the women in, even taking the responsibility to wheel Stu in after them. He watched the group flop down on the couch and he positioned Stu, glassy eyed, in the middle of the room. His grimy hands ran through the boy's head of clean hair. "You know, kid's these days," he drawled on, much to the excitement of the three girls, cross-legged and anxious on the cushions of his living room couch, "always putting their faces in the way of things that they shouldn't be."

Cherry hadn't left Stu Pot's side. Her hand clung around Mudoc, though her eyes watched Stu closely. "How long's he been out for?" chimed her friend at the couch. She was blonde, and far too pretty to be interested in Tiny. Still, her cotton-candy head leaned up against his beefy shoulder and she had already undid the back strap of her lacy black bra. Her name was Tara, and Murdoc was certain she'd endure one night with Tiny, just to wake up to Stu Pot in the morning.

"Two and a half months," Murdoc replied, sending a set of high-pitched gasps around the room. Tiny clung on to Tara, a toothy smile spread across his ugly face. "But I have such strong hope that he'll pull through, ladies," Murdoc added. "I'd be a damn liar if I told ya I didn't coax 'im through 'is ordeal day by day."

"You're a wonderful man, Mudsy," Cherry proclaimed, finally forcing herself to turn away from Stuart. She wrapped her hands around Murdoc's black shirted chest and found a way underneath it. "Stu is lucky to have you."

"Yeah, yeah," Murdoc swayed, stepping away from the wheelchair and allowing himself to be pushed against the wall. "We're the best of chums."

Cherry, Tara, and the other girl (whose name escaped Murdoc's gleeful mind), all started off to work. They managed to waste no further time with it, either. At the bang of Murdoc's back being pinned against the wall, they sprung into action, taking their cue vicariously. In their aggression, they even managed to pin both Tiny and Billy-Boy, as thick as they were, to the two separate couches. Cherry's voice came out towards his ears from between the sloppy kisses she smacked on his face. "Where," she breathed, slipping her hands up through Murdoc's black hair, "should... we put... Stuart?"

Her eyes slipped away from Murdoc's momentarily and she stared back at the kid, who hadn't moved a muscle since entering the condo. His knees locked together in a crooked sort of way, Stu Pot's blank expression made him look both oddly innocent and curiously perverted. "'E'll... be... fine... where 'e's at."

Blinking, Cherry dropped her arms. She looked still fairly intoxicated, but for the moment, she appeared to have snapped out of her delirium. "We can't just leave him here," she stated, looking lost. The previous infatuation for Murdoc had temporarily escaped her and she searched his face for some sort of connection. "Not with the others in the room." Her face morphed into a pout and, standing before him in her bra, Murdoc felt helpless.

The Satanist's eyes snapped open, scanning the room for a quick escape. Yet, anxious and in a swift hurry, he broke away from Cherry's grip and strode towards the unconscious kid. In his own drunken swag, he took hold of the wheelchair handles and ignored the grunts coming from Billy and Tiny's opposite directions. The other girls glanced up, sorry to see Stu go, but continued in their work as Murdoc directed him away. He made swiftly through the kitchen and, with a hurried hand, whipped open the broom closet. Then he wheeled Stu into the thing, shutting it abruptly before scrambling back towards Cherry, who looked slightly uneasy. "He's tucked away safe?"

"Snug as a bug, love," Murdoc replied, waving her away and flicking the kitchen lights off with a snap of his finger. Cherry's eyes softened, her smile returning. When she extended out her arms, she had latched herself to Murdoc in a second, carrying on where she'd left off. Any worry she had previously had about Stu had vanished and her sole focus had been returned to its rightful place. Thus, brimming with accomplishment, Murdoc allowed himself to be dragged by the waist of his pants into the depths of his open bedroom.

* * *

**Psychic City: **I'm glad that this turned out to be a longer chapter. I hope that the next chapter can be just as long, as well. Let me know what you think, definitely! I'd love to hear all your feedback. The good, the bad, and the ugly is always appreciated!


	8. Of Zombies and Horrifying Things

**Psychic City:** I'll get straight to it this time! :)

Thank you to: **Gimme back that fillet o'fish, LE Candeh, Va Vonne, Christine, Shetan Bandit, XxproperxsadxladyxsilentxX, whats-up-people, MCLanna, 2D Fan, This is How You Do It, **and** Lively McBrighten. **

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**Chapter Eight:**  
**Of Zombies and Horrifying Things**

"Did anyone ever tell you," drawled a voice in Murdoc's ear in the early hours of the morning, "that you look like a dead Beatle?"

The bassist scanned the wreckage of his bedroom, tasting left over liquor in his spit and feeling rather chilly beneath the sheets of his mattress. The curtains were drawn, but the mildly seeping light trickled through the cracks in the curtains and shown back into Murdoc Niccal's weary eyes. He looked back to the girl at his side, seated at the edge of the mattress and drawing up the foot of her black pantyhose. She glanced back over her shoulder, her red hair a mess, and checked to see if Murdoc had reacted to her statement. However, he only stretched himself out, leaned upwards, and pulled the covers off of himself as well, slowly making his way over to a pair of his discarded boxers.

A dropping sense of disappointment seemed to wash over her that hadn't been present the night before. Still, she made way towards her coat, wrapped it over her shoulders, and tied the band around her waist. In a more sober light, Murdoc could tell that she was slightly more thicker than she had been the night before; the waist belt of her coat only just made it around her hips. "I checked outside," she said, smoothing her hair back, "Tara and Maggie left already. Your friends are still on the couch."

Murdoc considered Cherry's discovery. He pulled the shorts over his legs and thought, _Maggie! So that was her name. Huh, looked more like a Bridget to me..._

Her hair tied back, Cherry repositioned herself and lit up a cigarette between her thin lips. She grabbed her hand purse and pulled on her stilettos staggeringly. Her makeup smeared across her face, Murdoc saw with a grimace that the rest of it had been smudged against the fabric of his white bed pillow. However, Cherry didn't dart quickly out the door, as most of the girls in her situation normally did after waking up next to Murdoc Niccals. Instead, she hung around, dwelling in her spot before taking a step closer to Murdoc, watching him yank up the wrinkly boxers before glancing towards the door. "I think I should say goodbye to Stuart before I get going," she announced. "Will the two of you be coming around the pub more often?"

The bass player's throat dried. Curious, he scanned the front of the woman with a tilted head, his eyes blinking back inquisitively at her. "Err, yeah, love, from... uh, time to time."

Whatever disappointment had tainted her face before vanished. A smile spread across her lips and she drew her cigarette from her mouth, giddily. The girlish grin that she had worn so proudly in the night before had returned to her. She put what could have been considered perhaps a more seductive smile and said with a hope tint, "well then, looks like I'll be seeing you two around, Murdoc Niccals." Murdoc's face twitched and he watched her as she scooted out the door, flouncing down the hallway in search of Stu, whom Murdoc had admittedly misplaced.

He searched his brain hastily before darting out in front of her, smoothing past her swiftly, and stumbling to the broom closet before she could notice. However, when he pulled the door open, he found himself staring down into the image of Stu, perhaps even more ill-looking than the night before. His previously clean hair was greasy and the bags under his eyes made him look exhausted and uneasy. Though his eyelids were half-open and wet, he looked even more out of it than before. Still, Murdoc noticed the trail of dried spit at the edge of his mouth, as well as the busted catheter that pooled down the leg of his black sweats.

Running a hand through his own seat of hair, a swift rush of panic swept oddly over him. "Fuck."

"Have you got him, then?" Cherry called, still fiddling with the silly strap at her waist. However, Murdoc didn't garner a chance to suitably respond. Once he'd spun around on his heel, he came face to face with the anxious woman, the smile still spread across her pretty face. She scanned Murdoc's drained face, but instinctively peered around it. "Ah!" she exclaimed, leaning forwards and gently shoving Murdoc aside into the wooden pantry, "there he is!" Cherry bent down, positioning her body next to Stu's crooked knees, and brushed her palm softly against his face. "How do you think he's doing in there?" she asked, dreamily. Her eyes locked within his blank gaze, and she seemed completely unaware to the kid's blatantly horrible state.

Murdoc shrugged, though he didn't say a word in response to her at all. He wasn't even sure if she'd been paying much attention, anyways. Nonetheless, he allowed her to linger uselessly around the unresponsive Stu before he heard her clear her throat and listened for her heels to scuff the floorboards beneath her. In turn, she didn't say a word, either. With her humiliating goodbye finished up, she fixed her expression and nodded gently towards Murdoc. Hastily, she scrambled towards the door, lunged for the knob, and disappeared out into the early morning before another word could be muttered.

* * *

Rachel Pot stared blankly at the sight of her younger sister at the edge of her son's room. Beatrice, with her dark hair pulled back into a pony-tail, had managed to look even attractive despite the lines of concern that had tainted her pretty face. The woman of barely thirty-six clung on to the hand of her small, eight year old daughter and Rachel could spot their presence from the slightly opened door of her son's hospital room. She hadn't planned on the two visiting, but it had been more than three months, and Stu hadn't had very many visitors over the course of the long ninety days. Still, Rachel found herself a bit uneasy as she watched the two approaching shadows, and she smoothed her son's blue hair to one side apologetically.

It had really been David who had coaxed Rachel into allowing Stu some visitors. She recalled the incident vividly, as her husband had approached her timidly, his shadow lingering in the very corner of her son's room. The place had become quite the second home for Rachel Pot and, as a nurse, she had even helped with Stu's constant care. Nonetheless, the man had still insisted. "He's lonely, Rach," he had said solemnly, with his own hands in the pockets of his trousers. He looked a mess, though running the summer carnival hadn't done much to improve his dirty image. "You don't want Stu to get lonely, do you, Rachel?"

"He's not _lonely!" _Rachel had insisted, her hands around Stu's spoon. It had been only a couple weeks since Stu had been moved from the hospital to the nursing home and Rachel Pot had found a way to visit her son quite frequently over the course of those seven days. Still, she paused in what she had been doing, set aside the canned food and let her son's head rest back down on the pillow underneath him. "He's not lonely, David," she repeated sternly, "he has me."

"Rachel, Stu's nineteen years old. He should be having friends come around to see him." Rachel's husband took a step forward towards his son. He spoke carefully, though managed to not restrain himself. Nonetheless, when he finally made his way to his son, he stroked his hair and pinched his chin, rubbing it gently before turning back to his wife. In the back of his mind, he'd known that he had struck a nerve with the woman. He'd known as well as the rest of the family that Stu hadn't had much friends to begin with. Their son's school years, of course, had not been the most enjoyable years of his life. Thus, David Pot readjusted himself, roughing up the blue hair that Rachel had only just smoothed. "Or at least some family."

Thus, the arrival of Beatrice and her daughter had only been inevitable. The woman stifled a sigh, clinging to her son with a timid grip. Despite herself, she managed to smooth out his hair and attempt to make him presentable. In a hurried gesture, she lifted Stu up and positioned him in a seated position at the back of his pillow. Her fretting hands brought his long blue hair behind his ears and down over the purple bruise that made his face look sickly. Then, as a last anxious action, she pulled the sheets up towards the top of his lap and rest her hand on the fold out table that sat mechanically in front of him.

"Rachel..." droned the sweet voice, and Rachel spun around. Her sister wore a sad smile and a raincoat, still dripping wet from the pouring rain outside. At her side, Stuart's younger cousin clung to the arm of her mother. Yet Rachel Pot couldn't help but stare solemnly at Sara, Stu's cousin. The girl's eyes searched the room minutely, as if looking for her relative, though when she found him there in the bed, a state of shock seemed to buzz over her. Guilt flooded through Rachel's body instantly; surely she shouldn't have allowed Beatrice to bring Sarah along, not when the girl couldn't even barely hold the concept of Stu's state correctly, anyways. And besides, the look on her face just broke Rachel's heart. Clinging on to her son's cold palms, Rachel managed to sheepishly produce a grin of her own, though it was not returned.

Beatrice's gaze dropped. She squeezed her daughter's hand and managed to lower her voice. However, neither of the two took a step forward. Despite the three months time that they had not seem Stu, it had been a strange feeling to see him then, the way that he was. Yet, over the pounding rain that hit the ceiling ahead of them, Beatrice lowered her voice and stared back at her nephew, a hint of overwhelming sorrow in her old voice. "How's he doing?"

Something in the question made Rachel wince. She didn't really have an answer for her sister, though the look on her face certainly gave away all the answer that she had needed. The truth of the matter was that it had been three months. Three months since Stuart had fallen into a coma and, in medical terms, that meant nothing but bad news. Three months had signaled that Stu's chances of waking up had lowered. Fear had overtaken Rachel. She wondered if she'd ever hear him play his keyboard again, or sing a song. She wondered, with a stabbing fear, that there would be a sense of awareness behind his otherwise unfocused gaze. "He's doing great," lied Rachel, nodding down at the young girl mournfully.

The girl in the corner ran a hand through her wet dark hair. She had not taken her eyes away from her cousin. Instead, she smoothed her own locks behind her ears and let her hand slip out from her mother's. Without permission, she crept up towards the side of Stu's bed and had managed to do so unnoticed. Though, when she made it to the very edge of the boy's mattress, she asked out loud, "when's Stu gonna wake up?"

A strange silence took over the room. Rachel Pot hadn't even noticed the girl leave her mother's side, and yet, she remained uncertain. Her unease showed blatantly on her face, which reddened with every passing moment. Though the girl did not seem to grasp the seriousness of the situation. Instead, she looked up at her mother and her aunt, waiting for an answer at all. Still, the young girl reached forward, despite Rachel's protest, and tickled under Stu Pot's ribs, a smile creeping on her face in hopes that he too would break into laughter. Yet Stu's face only minutely twitched, his eyebrows slightly coming together before the front of his mouth came slightly undone.

The girl's face knotted with confusion and she pulled her hand back before waving it in front of Stuart's bruised face. "Aunt Rachel," she asked, still wiggling her hands before glancing back over her shoulder. Her face dropped at the sight of her mother's and aunt's expressions. Both mortified, the two older women stirred uneasily in their seats, minds racing. "Aunt Rachel, why's Stu so sleepy?"

Rachel Pot racked her brain. Perhaps she could just lie to her niece. At eight years old, there was not much she could say to make the young girl understand. However, by the looks of things, her son wasn't about to wake up any time soon. It hadn't even registered in her mind that it had been three months- three long and overwhelming months. Stu Pot, he hadn't shown any sign of improvement. And, other than the fact that he could open his eyes, move his mouth, and grumble something occasionally, he wasn't too responsive either. But the look on her niece's curious face made her chest drop and, devilishly, she cast a petrified glance at her sister, who stood stoney and embarrassed. What had she been thinking anyway? Bringing an eight year old child over to visit her cousin before actually explaining the situation over to her? Bitter, a cold plummeting feeling dropped heavily in the depths of Rachel Pots very core.

"Stu isn't feeling so good, hon," came the reply of her aunt, stiffening. The girl noticed how her eyes switched back and forth from her son to her sister. When she looked at the girl, her expression was soft and sorry, but when she looked at her sister, her expression melted into an angry one. "He's very sick."

"Well, that's okay," the girl smiled, "I've been sick loads of times." Once again, Stu's young cousin turned back to him. She reached out a wet hand and held his nose shut playfully, waiting for him to react with a silly smile. However, when he didn't move, she slowly removed her fingers and snapped hastily in his ear, still giddy with the chance that he had just been faking her out. However, she wondered why he'd been playing the sleeping game for so long. Usually he was easy to crack when trying to fool her. She just made him smile so easily. Nonetheless, when Stu did not react, she tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at her aunt. "Why don't you just give him some medicine?"

Beatrice Pot shifted her weight, glancing down and away from her sister's furious look. Rachel's eyes burned intensely and she mouth, "could you help me out here?" but the younger woman remained uneasily silent. However, she felt a dropping feeling when her sister snapped, "can I talk to you outside?" and titled her head to one side with determination. And, while Beatrice did not have the heart to refuse, she passed her daughter a solemn smile before telling her to wait with Stu for a moment; she'd be right back. Thus, Rachel Pot slipped from the edge of her son's bedside, looking back over him and dabbing at his open mouth softly before gliding away. When she spun around, her furious attitude became blatantly obvious as her knuckles whitened at the grip of the door handle. She said, "after you," and the two had vanished within the instant.

The door of the boy's nursing home room slammed shut and, inwardly, Stu Pot's awareness suddenly switched on.

The young girl noticed the cans of mashed baby food that rest on the fold out table in front of him and her face crunched up with disgust. "Ew, Stu!" she gagged, picking the thing up with her fingers and sticking out her tongue. She made a ugly face and her left eye twitched. "What are you eating this for? This is _disgusting!_"

Yet, the depths of Stu's wandering mind frightened him and he felt as if he were floating. Nonetheless, the notion of loneliness gave him the chills and he lost comfort in the fact that he could not hear a single being from the dark spaces around him. Though he could not hear himself out loud, the sound of his own whimpering flooded through his head and echoed throughout his mind. His head was killing him, throbbing and twisting with every passing moment. He prayed for his painkillers, but the likes of them never came near. And, with a thrilling rush of terror, he realized once again that he was utterly and completely abandoned.

However, something small and delicate brushed the side of his face and his mental senses shifted. The chilly pressure that had flooded through him had managed to subside. The fear that had overtaken him seemed to drain and he felt a fast rise in his chest of nearness. Yet the warm sensation of joy lifted as he felt the tiny hand slip upward to his face, brushing aside his stray blue hair and then gently touching the space near his eye. The spot was sensitive and instantly Stu tried to reel backwards, but his body refused to move.

Something sighed and Stu felt someone violently pinch at his arm. "Come on, Stu," the voice said with a whine, "I have to go back to school soon and mum said that it'll be a whole week until I can come back." Something drained from Stu's face. He recognized the voice and a sense of overwhelming happiness rushed through him. Sara had been one of his closest cousins, and he tried to smile at the memory of the summer afternoons he'd spent spraying her with the backyard garden hose. However, despite his gentle bliss, the girl leaned forward and punched his arm. "Wake up! It's not funny now!"

The young girl's brain worked feverishly, glancing back towards her sleepy cousin. Maybe he wasn't faking it after all. She wondered if some ugly and cloaked witch had fed him a poisoned apple and, as a result, he'd fallen fast asleep. Hastily, she tried to think of all the prettiest girls she could think of. If she could just kiss Stu Pot on the lips, then he would wake up and play dolls with her again. And her Aunt Rachel wouldn't be so sad. Then, with a stroke of quick brilliance, the girl remembered the dark haired woman that used to come into Stu's work every so often. Her name was Paula, if she could remember, and Stu was always talking about asking her to a restaurant. She wondered if she could find Paula in time to help Stu wake up. Simple, then everything would carry on as usual.

Once again, she pinched Stu's sore forearm and Stu's bliss shrank indefinitely.

_Ouch. Fuck. _Perhaps bliss wasn't exactly a feeling that could last long for Stu Pot. At the harsh punch to the arm, the bile in Stu Pot's stomach washed up and then sunk back down. Though, despite himself, his eyes flicked hazily open. He couldn't see her there in front of him, but he heard her giggle excitedly.

"I _knew_ you were faking it!" she squealed and then arched forward, her chubby body flopping across his slender one. Then her thick, white arms wrapped around his neck and his head only lolled lifelessly to one side. Stu did not react. Instead, his eyes rest only half open and a trail of disgusting spit wandered out from the side of his mouth. Sara reeled backwards. She hadn't noticed before how horrible her cousin looked. She took in the sight of the boy's bruised neck and bandaged forehead. Then she saw the stitches at the side of his face and directly across the end of his blue hairline. He was wearing a dingy little mint green hospital gown with the back that was nothing but a tie. He looked sad and forlorn, unlike the boy she had grown used to. But, on top of all that, one of his normally friendly brown eyes had been clouded over. Now, instead of appearing warm and cheerful, it gazed back at her with the vision of a horrifying pitch black.

The girl stumbled backwards, falling off from the bed and on to her backside. Yet she didn't waste time worrying about the hard tile. Instead, she darted towards the door on fast feet, whipping the thing open with a red face and tear stained cheeks. The two women at the other side of the door glanced up. Both of them had looked so angry before, yet now their faces only glanced down at her, confused. "S-S-Stu's eye!" shrieked the girl, jolting her hand backwards, "h-h-his eye!" Then, without wasting much time, she broke down in a fit of tears and lunged for her mother, wrapping her arms around the woman's thick waist and burying her face deep within her stomach.

Rachel Pot's face whirled back into the room that belonged to her son and she lost the colored tint to her face. "Fuck," she muttered, and Sara was certain she'd never heard an adult swear in front of her before. Even Stu had managed to contain himself around her and she knew that Stu had a habit of swearing- swearing and smoking, in fact. With her head buried in her mother's gut, she remembered the time she had caught Stu outside the house around one in the morning. He had been crotched outside her home with his knees to his chest. He'd looked sad and he'd been by himself. She remembered coming downstairs and recalled that, at the sight of her, Stu had flicked the thing from his fingers and tried to demolish the cigarette with the tip-toes of his shoe. But Stu's black eye was worse than his habit of smoking. Despite the fact that she'd hated the idea of Stu smoking, she now wished that it had only been that simple.

"Why's Stu look so scary?" the little girl shouted, perhaps much more loud than she had anticipated; from inside the room, her comment bounced off the walls of the nursing home and found its way into Stu's ears.

Though before Stu had felt his chest drop, this time he had been certain that it had plummeted. A terrified feeling of anxiety washed through him. Scary? He could feel his body shaking unwillingly and the beating of his heart pounded like a drum. He wished for vision, wished for awareness, and wished for a mirror. The ship of his beating heart had sunk; never before had he been so petrified in his entire life.

The murmurs of the outside world frustrated him. He could hear the muffled voices of his aunt and his mother as the argued back and forth. And, all the while, his cousin cried through his fuzzy head. Stuart Pot had never been truly angry about his state, but at that moment, he couldn't have been more furious. He wanted to sit up and run for his own mother. He wanted to reach his arms forward and pull his own hair out. He hated everyone walking around him and whispering. He hated living in the dark. He hated the needles and whatever it was that the figures around him had been feeding him every day.

He hated hearing his mother cry and he hated the miserable mood he put people in. Stu's heart pounded in his chest and he felt the sense of overwhelming sadness rush into him. His throat clenched and his head whirled, hurricane-like. Why was this happening to him? He didn't want to make anyone miserable- all he wanted was to go to work and play the keyboard and write music. But now he couldn't even move his fingers. Now he couldn't even drive a car or carry out a conversation or... or spray his cousin with the fucking backyard hose.

"Is Stu dead?" he heard his cousin sob over the rushing air that whisked around in his ill-fated brain.

His mother recoiled. "No, honey, of course not!"

In his own mind, Stu wished that he was. Being dead was better than living only by existence. He felt himself as a mere presence, a figure on display. He hated the way they poked and prodded at him, hated the voices they used to encourage him and the way they shoved food into his mouth, encouraging him along the way. If he didn't swallow it, they massaged his throat and it hurt. And he felt stupid when they brushed his hair and whispered, "good job, Stu! You're doing so well!" when all he'd done was open his eyes. What Stu wanted was his life back and, feverishly, he begged for it above all things.

"Is he _going _to die?"

"No, honey," Stu heard his mother repeat again, this time with a slight sob of her own. "Of course not!"

However, Stu felt otherwise. In the deepest part of his miserable head, he felt a sinking feeling that he was nearing the end of his days.

He heard himself unwillingly groan and the voices around him immediately fell silent. At the other end of the hallway, Rachel Pot stiffened and then, despite herself, leaned forward to the lights at the side of the wall. Stu could hear the click, could sense the instant recall of light as it flashed away from him. The door shut and all had gone away. He could no longer hear the sonud of his cousin or the voice of his mother reassuring her. Only, he heard the fierce pound of rain above him, cackling with thunder and booming with lightning.

Stu had never liked thunderstorms; they frightened him and made him cold. He thought of all the horrifying things that come out at night during the rain and could almost physically envision the sight of a decaying zombie hand reach out from the muddy ground of his occupied grave sight. And once again, Stu found himself alone in the bitterness of the night.

* * *

**Psychic City: **More chapters very very soon! Please note, Stu's cousin is not going to be a main character. I think I already said how OCs are not my thing. :) I just like adding random people into stories to create drama and flow. So, she will not be coming back as a teenager to fall in love with Murdoc. And she won't have a friend that will pay 2D a visit, only to- surprise- fall in love with him later. I will spare you the unnecessary cliches and stick with the original story, promise! :)

Anyway, please let me know what you think! I'm happy to hear from you all, always!


	9. Gone Running

**Psychic City: **Well, after the depressing nature of the last chapter, I set out to make this one more humorous and fun for all of you! I hope I've pulled that off, of course. So, definitely let me know what you think. I'd love to hear your feedback AND constructive criticism. All of it is welcomed, definitely. I would love to know what you think and how I can improve because I am definitely writing for all of your enjoyment! Thank you in advanced, and I can't wait to hear from you!

A big, big thank you to: **LE Candeh, Lively McBrighten, MCLanna, XxproperxsadxladyxsilentxX, NeonZebra23, whats-up-people, **and** AkinaTakesora.**

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**Chapter Nine:  
Gone Running**

Because Stu Pot had overheard his eight year old cousin call him 'scary', he had been more than overjoyed to find that the usually angry man had decided to take him out shopping for some new clothes.

Despite the blatant awkwardness of the situation, the man seemed to be in a more cheerful mood when he'd picked Stu up from the nursing home and wheeled him out the front doors. Nonetheless, he had shoved Stu into the special seat at the back of his car, murmured something feverishly to himself, and had taken off down the freeway with his foot pressed hard on the gas pedal. However, the speed didn't really bother Stu much. While he had usually taken great care in driving when he was behind the wheel, Murdoc Niccals' rush was perhaps quite livid in a lively way that made Stu feel a bit more like a human being, rather than just an existing essence. Though the man's awful driving had helped them arrive at the shopping mall in due time and Stu was whisked out from his seat in the car, thrown into the wheelchair hastily, and wheeled away from the car park with full force.

"Alright, Stu Pot," Murdoc grumbled down to the kid, rubbing his hands together in a greedy sort of manner. "You may look like a pretty boy, but you dress like a ten year old." When he shoved Stu's wheelchair through the main doors of the mall, he added proudly, "if ya ever do snap out of this t' find tha' your closet is full of bad arse clothes, don't say that I never did anything nice for ya."

But as far as Stu Pot was concerned, the man had done a great deal for him already. For one, Stu Pot hated being in that nursing home; thus, going anywhere else had always been a thrill. Besides, the gruff man didn't talk to him like a child, and he certainly didn't encourage him in any sort of high-pitched voices. He managed not to humiliate Stu and had somehow obtained the ability to make Stu feel like he wasn't somewhere far off in the unobtainable distance.

So, when Murdoc Niccals' fists touched Stu's chest, holding up to it a shirt that Stu could not see himself, he trusted the man when he breathed out, "ah, purrrrfffeecct," feeling less and less horrifying as he did so. He even trusted the man's jugdement later that night, when he felt a new shirt being pulled over his shoulders and a pair of tight pants being yanked on to each of his legs. And when his senses smelt the rancid smell of the man's favourite late night pub, Stu Pot almost felt as if he were one of the living souls gather around inside the place.

"There's the sodding bastard!" Tiny, with his beefy hands above his head, waved his arms around fractionally before excitedly slumping back into his seat. He exchanged a happy glance towards his friend, who was equally as unappealing, and then slammed his palms on the table top as Murdoc approached with the comatose kid sluggishly. "Finally!" he whispered, though a smile was still anxious plastered on his face. Despite trying to look angry at Murdoc for arriving late, he could not quite contain his enthusiasm. "Took ya long enough."

Murdoc's tired face shot back at Tiny, who glanced down and then back at Stu Pot, taking in the sight of his new look. The boy's blue hair had been messed up further, so that it stuck out at all different angles, and his face hadn't been bothered to have been cleaned up. In fact, it appeared as if Murdoc had intentionally pulled his blue hair behind his ears so that the deep purple bruise at the side of his face became more obvious. Then Tiny's eyes found the kid's new clothes. Bundled up in a rugged leather jacket, the trousers he was wearing had been pelted with holes and tears. On the boy's long hands, Murdoc Niccals had slid on a pair of biker gloves.

Tiny's thick eyebrow twitched. "Wot," he said analytically, "did you take the kid t' a biker shop or something?"

Fidgeting with the skull encrusted belt that looped around Stu Pot's thin waist, Murdoc huffed begrudgingly. "It's the 'bad boy' look, you arse! Birds go ape shit over this sor'a shite."

It was Billy-Boy's turn to fret. He pressed his ugly mug closer towards Stu and made a face at the dark black circles that rounded around his shut eyelids. "Is... is tha' _eyeliner_ tha' 'e's wearin'?" the man scoffed, horrified. The disgusted twist that had tainted his face made him look sour. "You put the kid in fuckin' _makeup?" _

"Fuck off!" Murdoc hissed, flashing the two men his set of jagged teeth. He could not have given more of a flying fuck about whether the two men had fancied Stu's new look or not. For starters, makeup or not, Stu Pot looked a hell of a lot better than he did before Murdoc had gotten his hands on him. In fact, the bassist had made a point to set the remainder of Stu's clothes on fire, beginning with the outfit packed by his mother that made him look like a sodding school boy. And besides, Murdoc had watched enough of that damn MTV to know that birds these days, they just loved their bad boys. The rebels, Murdoc found, that was the ticket.

And, despite the fact that innocent old Stu Pot was a useless vegetable, that couldn't stop Murdoc from changing the kid's demeanor completely. Sure, Stu Pot had probably never stolen a thing in his life, and sure he enjoyed spending time with his younger cousins, but that didn't mean that any of the women in the pub had to know about it. Thus, Murdoc overlooked the fact that Stuart had received good markings in school, and had no criminal record to deal out. Instead, he'd been more than certain that it rebuilding the kid was his only other option.

Murdoc glanced grimily over his shoulder. The pub had been crawling with birds that night; all shapes and sizes of them, too. To his appreciation, he saw fat and slender ones, desperate and pompous ones, leggy and stout ones- all tweeting around the place practically begging for Murdoc to chuck a stone in their direction. He felt his chest rise up with excitement and, despite himself, he rustled Stu Pot's azure hair with satisfaction. "Alright then, you bloody git," he said, cocking his head to the left and passing a suggestive wink in the direction of a pretty girl in the far right corner. She had bright pink hair and a tongue ring that let Murdoc know right away what type of girl she was. "Let's get fucking laid."

* * *

Murdoc Niccals stared proudly at his reflection in the looking glass that hung above his sink at his ruddy condo. The pink haired girl had turned out to be exactly what Murdoc had labeled her to be, and then some. In fact, he'd been so satisfied that he hadn't even minded when she had left his condo in the early morning around two-thirty in a hurry, though she hadn't been in a complete rush; before darting out the door, she'd managed to kiss Stu Pot sweetly on the cheek. And then, without word to Murdoc, she fumbled out into the night, her coat sleeve stick stuck into the waist of her leather trousers. Though still, despite the slight setback, his big head had swelled to unbelievable proportions and he could not have been more proud.

However, still in his boxers, he glanced down at Stu Pot, slumped over in the bathtub where he'd left him for the night. His long arms dangled out the side of the thing and his head was cocked to the side, pressed up against the cool tile next to his sagging shoulder. Still dressed like a thuggish punk, Murdoc heaved a sigh and whipped the wash cloth from the end of the sink before dousing it with soap and water. He kneeled forward and pressed the thing up to Stu Pot's eyes, scrubbing away at the black eye makeup with full force. Before, when shopping for the stuff, Murdoc Niccals had made it a point to purchase the water proof brand because of Stu Pot's habit of crying throughout the day. However, as the makeup seemed to remain persistent, Murdoc found that he immensely regretted his decision in the first place.

Thus, too tired to be bothered with such a mess, he jetted himself around and positioned his back against the porcelain tub, legs striking outwards in two opposing directions. He massaged his wrists back and forth, stretching out his body with an aggressive force that made his head spin. He was quite certain that he had consumed far too much over the course of the night, yet he was deviously impressed at his almost steady composure. Like a true gentlemen, he'd managed to escort the pink haired girl, whose name he was almost certain was ironically Pinky, through the front door of his house and swiftly into the bedroom without much issue. She even seemed keen on having Stu Pot in the room with her while she climbed on top of Murdoc, however, the dopey kid's presence only made the bass player uneasy. So, despite her strange desires, he'd picked up the comatose boy by the wrist, dragged him into the bathroom and had, of course, thrust him into the contents of his tub conclusively.

So there the two of them were, exhausted and out of breath in the filthy space that Murdoc Niccals had called a bathroom. Murdoc's hovering vision spotted the set of St Pot's collected box of shit and an intoxicated smile spread across his face. He took to a groggily crawl, feeling across the tile towards it and reaching inwards to yank out the locked journal that he had previously overlooked. His eye twitched at the sight of it, for he had never heard of a grown man keeping a diary. Yet nonetheless, he proceeded to pry it open invasively; and since locks had never been a problem for Murdoc Niccals, the thing bounded open as soon as he gave it a hard enough tug.

"Good ol' Stu Pot," he drawled on, checking back on the kid over his shoulder. Stu's limp body made no reaction to Murdoc's comment. However, he carried on, looking just as sad as he had always looked, and just as miserable as he had been expected to be. Yet, in his drunken delirium, Murdoc pulled out his packet of fags and popped a single cigarette between Stu's wet lips. For good measure, he clocked Stu Pot devilishly at the side of his sore chin and then turned back to the pages curiously. "Sweet Satan," Murdoc hummed blatantly as his mismatched eyes scanned the insides of the boy's private journal, "you write like a fuckin' five year old!"

True enough to Murdoc's blunt statement, Stu Pot's wonky hand writing had been scribbled across the page like common chicken scratch. He'd misspelled a fraction of the words and used grammar that was unnecessary and rather useless. Raising an inquisitive eye back towards the lifeless being in the tub, Murdoc let out an amused little giggle before burying his face within the thing once and for all.

_"Dear Dairy," _the first page read, unknowingly referring to dairy products, thus causing Murdoc to howl with laughter. _"I think mum's found out about me smoking becuase shes been searching frough me things all morning._

_She says things about me lungs and how smoking makes em black cause shes a nurse but Ive been smoking since I woz seventeen and I only thought you could get the black lung from the coal mines or somefink. I dunno if dad minds it much cus he smokes too and hes fine too. But really I fink I like smoking cause it helps me feel relaxed like right now. But I wonder wot mum would fink if she knew about the pot and painkillers too. I fink tomorrow I going to try and stop smoking for her cause I know she doesnt like it. Not tonight though, but tomorrow I will. Stu."_

With a broad beam, Murdoc decisively reached towards his lighter, flickered the thing on, and hovered the flame around the cigarette in Stu Pot's mouth. Whether or not Stu had quit smoking, it didn't matter; Murdoc had once again ignited the kid's addiction. "There ya are, mate," Murdoc said proudly, happy to help. "No need to thank me..."

He returned to the crinkled pages of the pathetic little diary, reading entries about sort of crazy high, or a horrifying zombie movie, or chasing a storm with a handheld camera. He read about the boy's trouble with his blue hair, and his frustration with being a slower thinker, and the pretty girl named Paula Cracker that came in and bought guitar picks from Uncle Norms every once in a while. He read about Stu's obsession with music and graffiti art and found that, no matter how hard he tried, Stu couldn't really help himself when it came to a bottle of spray paint.

Stu had never been in trouble with the law, had never had any real friends, had had sex once, and had only kissed three girls in his lifespan of nineteen years. He'd never had a girlfriend and, as far as he'd known, he'd never been inside a pub. Thus, with an unimpressed sigh, Murdoc Niccals came to the realization that Stu Pot, all things considered, was a rather good kid. It was a fact that slightly annoyed him in an odd way, as if his innocence were rather unacceptable. How had he ended up watching this pathetic kid in the first place? Sure, he'd hit him in the head with a car and created a massive dent in the side of his head, but, really, that wasn't the point- at least, not in Murdoc Niccal's eyes.

The two couldn't have been more polar opposite of one another. At eight years old, Murdoc had lost his virginity, broken his nose in a school yard fight, and passed out piss-faced drunk on the side of the road. At nineteen, Stu Pot hadn't even lived. And Murdoc was furthermore securely convinced- if he hadn't stumbled across Stu Pot in the first place, the fucking kid would remain a bloody wanker for the rest of his miserable life. Perhaps it was a good thing that he was now a vegetable. Better that than live a life of such low standards.

"Tosser," Murdoc finally grunted, thrusting the little booklet in the corner of his room and turning back to Stu Pot anxiously. He remembered the previous time he had dropped Stu back off at the nursing home greasy, unwashed, and smelling. Of course, Rachel Pot had an absolute fit. Them after she had finished going completely bonkers, she'd written up a new list. Bathing, of course, had been at the tipy-top. So, muttering under his breath, Murdoc whisked off the leather jacket and threw it over his shoulder before darting towards the boy's new trousers.

For the kid's sake, he left him in his boxers and turned to the water faucet carelessly. With the cigarette still burning in the boy's loose mouth, Murdoc twisted the handle of the shower and watched as the water fell from it as if from a rain cloud. He cocked an eyebrow down at Stu Pot, placing his own fag between his lips and lighting it up instinctively. The water had outed Stu's, leaving him with the half-yellow thing just barely hanging on to his lower lip. But with barely anything on, Stu Pot was, in fact, painfully thin. A long line of stitches ran up the side of his body from where he'd had an ample amount of surgeries, thanks to the car accident three months before. Of course, the extra bruises had been cause of the Niccals man himself and, much to his satisfaction, he stared at them with a blistering pride that brought an absolute smile to his face. Still, he remained unmoving, watching the water wet Stu Pot's head of blue hair and making it stick to his pale face.

Mudoc Niccals, he considered his options. He didn't want to be stuck with this scrawny kid for life. Sure, Stu Pot made getting laid a snap, but Murdoc never really had much trouble in that department to begin with. Yet, the overwhelming presence of the man's own mother made Murdoc's blood crawl and his lip curl. She had made certain that the time spent with her son had been taken seriously, and getting out of Stu-Pot-Care-Time had become rather impossible. He considered for a moment that, if he made a quick bolt for the door, he could leave Stu Pot in the shower to drown while he made his way to the nearest airport. However, the notion of doing so quickly deflated as he considered jail time to be a bit too drastic of a consequence.

But what Murdoc needed was a band, and Stu Pot was only just getting in the way of his progression. Sure, the bleeding kid could play the keyboard, but what use was he now? Perhaps he could just lie on stage like a dead fish and attract girls from across the room? No. Not practical. What he needed to do was think straight, think clear and... bloody hell he needed another drink.

Nonetheless, the sway of his previous consumption had taken the best of him. As he staggered away from the tub, feeling the onset of a painful hangover creep into his skull, Murdoc lost hold of his footing and found himself colliding with the tiled wall before slipping down the side of it, back to the place before the tub he'd began at. Perhaps, he thought drunkenly, Stu Pot was supposed to find Murdoc Niccals. And maybe Murdoc Niccals was just doomed to be damned for the rest of his life.

He allowed his eyes to fall back over to Stu, flicking the boy's nose with a twitch of his middle finger. "Fucking pain in my arse, you are," he grumbled before leaning his head back against the edge of it and passing out for himself.

* * *

When Rachel Pot arrived back at the room that belonged to her comatose son, she had been horrified to find that he was soaking wet, covered in muddy black ash, and crying smears of women's black eyeliner. She stood at the doorframe, considering the state of her unmoving and only child, before she noticed the note pinned to the front of his mint green hospital gown. Then, very slowly, she approached the thing with caution before reaching forward and plucking the crumbled paper up from Stu's carefully rising chest.

_"Stu and I went for a jog this morning which is why, as you can see, he is exceedingly wet. Have to admit, he is a great sprinter; sweats like a dog, though._

_- M"_

_

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_**Psychic City: **How about that? A little bit of male bonding time! I'm not a Murdoc x 2D shipper, so there won't be any slash in this. It's all just in fun, of course. So, I'm going to try and make it as realistic as possible. I'm sure Muds hated 2D for the longest while, because he still does, but come onnn, how can you not like that little face?

You know what to do! :)


	10. The Devil and Paula Cracker

**Psychic City: **I'm sorry that it has been a little while since I've uploaded any part of this. I'm working on a few personal projects for myself at the moment, so I took a bit of time away. Now I'm glad to finally have this chapter back up to you.

Thank you to: **Va Vonne, LE Candeh, McLanna, Lively Mc Brighten, Carl, whats-up-people, Gimmie back that fillet o' fish, WordWrytha, XxproperxsadxladyxsilentxX, ryon, iTSMOllYxoxo, AkinaTakesora, **and **TsukiUchiha13! **

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**Chapter Ten  
The Devil and Paula Cracker**

Murdoc Niccals never once in his life thought that he would ever find himself in the position that he was in currently. Legs slumped downwards, eyes scanning the sight of ten pairs of nursing home patients, he avoided glancing sideways at Stu Pot drooling next to him. The meeting that he had been assigned to attend had been put together by the administration at the nursing home as if to only just punish Murdoc further. And while they'd insisted that it had been just the usual schedule, Murdoc was certain that they were lying to him. He blinked his mismatched eyes, waiting for the instructor to arrive in the empty seat at the head of the circle that he was seated in. The patients in front of him were paired with a family member, friend, or spouse; they fidgeted with every passing moment. But Murdoc only found grievance in the fact that the group leader was late and, with an impatient hand, he reached for the packet of cigarettes that had been calling to him since he'd arrived there.

"You can't smoke in here." The bass player looked up. Glaring in his direction was the face of an old and wrinkly woman, her gray hair loose around her shoulders. She wore a pink nightgown and matching slippers, yet the scowl on her visage made her appear bitter and stoney. She was hunched forward in her chair, next to her young granddaughter at her side. For a moment, Murdoc stole a glance at her partner, whose hands rest about the shoulders of her grandmother wearily. She was mousy haired, fat, and clad in a pair of black baggy trousers. She did not object to her grandmother's harsh statement.

Shrugging his shoulders, Murdoc popped the fag between his lips anyways. He continued to lock eyes with both the females and ignored the older woman when she turned to her granddaughter in a whiney plea. "I don't want to do this with _him_," she said, extending a lengthly crooked finger out in his direction, "I know what he is... he's the _devil." _

Responsively, Murdoc flashed the senile old bat his set of rotting teeth, winking back at her sarcastically. When he reached into his trousers and pulled out his lighter, he flicked light onto the butt of the cigarette conclusively. "You're too kind," said the devil.

Defeated, the crazy old woman pulled away, shrinking down into the chest of her chubby relative. She avoided continuous eye-contact with the man, though secretly murmured quick little prayers under her breath. Her skinny fingers wrapped up around the cross necklace around her flabby neck and she held it out ahead of her, waiting for the bassist to be dragged back to Hell. However, Murdoc's presence only remained in front of her. He cocked an eye at her foolishness, feeling superior, and dug the end of his Cuban heel into the tiled floorboards. Yet he did not focus on the woman for much longer. Instead, he surveyed the rest of the nursing home patients with bitter curiosity. Aside from Stu, they were all alert, aware, and awake. In their seats next to their more sane partners, they eyed Murdoc up and down as a group.

"Why're you here?" said a man farthest away from Murdoc. He was in a wheelchair and dressed in a pair of track pants. His jacket bore the headache-inducing vision of bright colours and across the breast a label read 'Track and Field'. He was not old, but middle-aged and miserable. He looked crushed from his legs down and sat upon the chair as if he were slanted, despite the dangling silver whistle that had been draped around his shoulders. "I've never seen you here before."

It took a moment for Murdoc to answer. Instead, he sucked greedily at the end of his cigarette and tilted his head lightly. Out of the nine other patients around him, this man seemed to be at least the most level headed. Nonetheless, the scowl that he gave to Murdoc was one that the Satanist recognized all too often. Yet his feelings were not hurt; he was, of course, only fueled by such displays of distaste towards him. Thus, he pried the cigarette from his mouth and narrowed his set of mismatched eyes. "'M 'ere with Stu, _coach_," Murdoc finally stated, cocking a thumb towards the boy next to him. He did not look at Stu, however; he hadn't actually really looked at him at all that morning.

"Rachel's usually with Stuart," replied the man, eyeing the comatose boy slightly. He looked over his shoulder as if hoping to spot the boy's large-breasted mother in the room so that she could replace Murdoc and their session could carry on as normal. However, Rachel was nowhere to be seen. Nonetheless, when the door behind him opened and a brunette and uniformed woman stood in the doorframe, the man seemed to perk up, his hope reformed. He locked eyes with her approaching figure and cocked his head back towards Murdoc with a spiteful jerk. "What's he doin' here?"

The woman in white glanced over towards Murdoc. "Ah, this is Murdoc Niccals. He will be taking Mrs. Pot's place for a couple of weeks," she informed them. She smiled down at Murdoc, who only rolled his eyes and smiled back tauntingly at the wheelchair-bound track coach opposite him. "Sorry I'm late," the woman added. Still, Murdoc sarcastically surveyed her, all too angry with the lengthy time period she had added to the session. She was short, pugdy, and rugged; her nose was pointed and outstretched. Her face had a tint of red to it and her fat fingers gripped her notebooks carefully. When she dipped down low in front of Murdoc to place a hand longingly on Stu-Pot's forehead, Murdoc was certain that she'd wanted to fuck his brains out. "How ya doin', Stu?" she asked, ruffling up his blue hair with a flashy smile.

"Spectacular," muttered Murdoc for Stu-Pot in a mockingly dry tone. However, the woman did not seem to pay him much attention. Instead, she leaned forward and dabbed at Stu's face with a wash cloth that she pulled out from her coat. Then, without a word, she plucked Murdoc's cigarette from his fingers and outted it on the floor with her sole of her shoes. "Bitch," Murdoc grumbled.

Nonetheless, the woman strode over to her seat where she positioned her large backside into the bottom of it readily. Her name tag glistened in the light above her: Patrica Haughtly. Her eyes seemed to linger around the room before she turned back to the crowd before her again. "Shall we get started, then?" she asked, crossing her large thigh over the other. Murdoc shuttered. The least they could have done was hired a beautiful woman to conduct the sessions. But no, instead they'd picked Patrica Haughtly, the woman who was perhaps a whale in disguise.

Not a soul seemed to move around the room. Their eyes still focused on Murdoc Niccals, a second wheel-chaired woman in the back shifted in her seat. Murdoc hadn't noticed her before, but she was young and disgustingly obese. He wondered how he had not seen her there, skin drooping over the edges of the only sort of chair to support her. At her side sat her buff husband, who was only a fraction of her size, and he looked repulsed and bitter behind his face of anxiety. "Where did Rachel go?" hissed the woman, her large face fixed up in a hissy.

Patricia frowned, though did not look upset with the woman in the slightest. In the most understanding and polite way, she turned her body back towards the woman at her right. Murdoc wondered how she did it; he had only lasted a half an hour with these lunatics and already he had begun counting the ways that he could wipe them off. "Rachel has work to take care of. She's a nurse, remember, Ms. McClean? Besides," she continued, "Mr. Niccals is not the only new supporter we have with us today, hm. Ms. Cracker, would you like to introduce yourself?"

Murdoc swiveled around. In the seat in front of him sat a boney woman, dark hair covered her face almost completely. She wore her sunglasses above her head, and crossed her thin legs at the ankle. She had been perhaps the only one in the room that had not paid Murdoc any attention whatsoever. Instead, she seemed to be more perplexed on the state of her scuffed boots than anything else in the room. "'M Paula," she mumbled breifly, slightly bringing her eyes over to Stu before snatching them away. Yet no one seemed to protest in the appearance of Paula Cracker. Instead, their vendetta remained solely towards Murdoc.

"Paula's here with her great grandfather, Mick," clarified Patricia. She gestured towards the aging man at her side. He looked bitter and resentful, though his miserable expression seemed to match Paula's as well. Neither of the two looked as if they had wanted to be there, or if they had even fancied one another very much. "Thank you for coming today, Paula, that was very kind of you."

"Yeah, well," Paula scoffed, "at least _someone_ appreciates it." With that, she passed a distinct scowl over towards the man nearest her who, in turn, flipped her the bird. Paula's eyes soared into the back of her head and she pushed the black hair away from her face with an unimpressed huff. "Bleedin' bastard."

Murdoc watched the girl attentively. She was slightly wonky-looking, though something about her made him interested- though he was certain it was only because she was the most attractive female in the room with him. He watched her as she crossed her arms across her chest, leaning back into her seat and waiting for the remainder of the nursing home's session to begin. Yet every so often Murdoc was sure that he saw her look up, stare curiously at both he and Stu, before retracting and glancing hastily away before she was certain that he could notice her scrutiny. Thus, the Niccals man readjusted himself in his seat, cocking a final eyebrow back at Paula before, in turn, glancing away as well. She looked like a right bitch anyways.

Patricia shuffled her papers, surveying the group for the last time. "Who would like to start us off today, hm?" she asked. A slight bout of whimpering begun from the woman in the nightgown. She had not let her fingers go from the bulk of her cross necklace and seemed to be loosing hope that Murdoc would soon return to his place in Hell. "What about you, Mr. McClean? How's your relationship with your wife been going?" Patricia asked with earnest, a smile crossing her face as she turned towards the married couple. She looked peaceful within herself, ready to start a positive and empowering session for the day. Yet she did not notice when he man's face dropped into a scowl, seemed oblivious to the blatant expression of distaste he had etched onto his face.

The muscular man crossed his arms across his abdomen. He shook his head, looking disgusted as the moments passed. "Still keeps gettin' fatta'," he stated.

"Fuck you," Mrs. McClean retorted; Murdoc sincerely had to stifle the fit of laughter he could feel rising up in his throat.

Patricia's face fell flatly. "Uh, right... err, Paula," she settled, turning away from the fuming couple within the instant, "have you noticed any improvement with your great grandfather's health?"

"'E's still as batty as 'e's always been," Paula responded. She looked as if she were counting down the moments until the man dropped dead. Although, she seemed to notice the tried look on Patrica's face and she adjusted herself, attempting to start again. She chewed decisively on her lower lip, trying to think of something slightly more helpful to brighten the situation. When she had finiahed mulling her options over, she looked up with a rather blank visage. "But, uh... 'e's been taking 'is medications, 'e 'as."

"Only 'cause your putrid muvva pours 'em down me throat!" crocked the dying old geezer.

Murdoc stole a second glance at Paula whil he was sure that she wasn't looking. She looked about nineteen, Stu's age, and seemed to act as if she had somewhere more important to head off to. Murdoc was certain that she did not. Despite her miserable demeanor, she remained seated in the chair before her, taking the chance to dig through her purse without truly pulling anything of importance out from it. He noticed within the bag that she'd supported a pack of cigarettes, a red and black striped tie, and a pair of frilly pink underwear that set her off completely. _Pink?, _thought Murdoc, shifting eagerly. However, he remained floored. _Seems more like a bit of a 'commando' kind of girl to me..._

Patrica's smile broadened. "Murdoc, what about you?"

"Huh." Surprised by the sudden attention, Murdoc jolted upright, directing his eyes away from the underwear in Paula's purse. "Oh, yeah, _Stu."_ Murdoc did not even address the boy. Instead, he looked around at the others, finally deciding to focus on the group leader instead. "We get on err... real well. Famously, perhaps."

"Are you finding that the care of him has grown easier?" asked Patrica, taking slight notice that Murdoc had not once glanced in Stu's direction. She did not seem to dwell on the fact, however, and she also did not notice Paula. The girl's expression shifted; she seemed more and more perplexed with Stu-Pot than ever. She looked as if she might have known him prior. But that was impossible, Murdoc decided. Stu Pot did not talk to any girls; he didn't even know of any. Yet the look in Paula Crack's eyes were blatant. With every passing moment, Murdoc felt himself grow slightly uneasy.

Although the silence in the room went completely unnoticed to him. He only seemed to linger on Paula, more curious by the minute. Sure Stu Pot had certainly received his attention from woman all around, but something about the way she was looking at him was different. He noticed her raised eyebrow and her narrowed eyes. She squinted at him as if only trying to get a better look. Every so often, she chewed on her lower lip, considering him slightly. Then, when she was certain that she could not quite figure him out, she would turn away, leaving Murdoc completely in the dust.

Patrica waited for a response. "Ah'm... err, gettin' used t' it," Murdoc lied, only to have something acceptable to say in the first place.

"You're getting used to it, are you?" recoiled the fat woman in the corner. She turned away from her husband and surveyed Murdoc up and down. The expression on her face was all the more demeaning. And while she definitely loathed her husband with a burning passion, it was blatant that she hated Murdoc even more. "How d' you think _he_ feels about all this, then?" She cocked what could have been called her chin in an upwards motion. Her beady eyes rested upon Stu and her face reddened in response.

Something shifted next to Murdoc, forcing his attention away from Paula. Slouched down in his wheelchair, Stuart gave a timid little moan and rest his head at the side of the backboard at his seat. The dark bruises around his eyes were beginning to fade, yet his expression was unaffected. Eyes open, he stared around the room without any true focus. On impact, the entire atmosphere of the room deflated. Everyone seemed to hold their breath and Murdoc wondered if Stu had never really opened his eyes during the sessions before with his mother. He wondered what the big deal was and why everyone had been acting so strangely. Even Paula froze in her seat, her eyes bugging out of her head responsively.

It had been the first time Murdoc had looked at Stu since his arrival that morning into the nursing home. Murdoc noticed that Stu Pot had been dressed in his own clothes, making his look even further more like a complete tosser. He wore a pair of gray sweatpants and a short-sleeved yellow top over a long-sleeved white one. Someone had tied a long cloth across his chest to catch his spit. His eyes flickered slightly, as if trying with difficulty to keep them open. Then Murdoc adjusted himself. "Wot about 'im?" he asked carefully, "'e doesn' feel a thing..."

"_Spawn of Satan!" _hissed the older woman at his side, and Murdoc tossed his hands up in defeat. Sure, he'd loved being given such a title as much as the next guy, but now he was beginning to think that the entire room was in on Stu's situation. "Look what you've done to him," scoffed the woman, her hands still outstretched in front of her. She had not released the necklace since she had picked it up earlier. Murdoc rolled his eyes. It wasn't like the woman knew Stu Pot before he was a vegetable. There was absolutely no need for her to take his condition to heart.

"They should 'ave put you in the slammer," spat the buff man, tilting his head to one side. "Runnin' a kid over with a bloody car, for fuck's sake..."

Murdoc tilted his head over to Patricia, eyes narrowing. "Way to be discrete," he hissed, however the woman did not respond. Of course they had known all about Murdoc and Stu; they had seen the man come in to the nursing home every day, supplies in hand, with a grimace on his otherwise ugly visage. At the realization, Murdoc thrust his head back, huffing sarcastically before crossing his own arms across his chest. "I'm goin' t' need a bloody fag in abo' two seconds for 'his shit," he said truthfully.

Stu gave a second little groan and his blue hair looked floppy against his pale face. "He might as well be dead," crocked the fat woman, whose husband nodded.

"Alright, tha's it..." Murdoc growled, rolling his eyes. It was certainly a strange feeling to be so analyzed. Sure, he hadn't helped Stu-Pot's situation, but surely they hadn't passed all the blame on to him. Of course, Murdoc considered that they were only selfish- focusing only on Stu's predicament rather than his, as well. Yeah, Stu hadn't been able to do anything on his own anymore, but at least he didn't have to sit through an entire group session at the nursery home. At least, he didn't realize that he had to, anyways.

Murdoc scooted away from the crowd, ignoring the religious woman's grateful prayer before flicking her cross necklace from her grip and watching it clamor to the floor. He didn't wait for Patricia to protest. Instead, he stumbled up from his seat and, habitually, took ahold of Stu Pot's wheelchair handles. He noticed Paula Cracker, in particular. Her almond eyes followed the two of them, watching suspiciously as their figured retreated, before Murdoc finally vanished from the scene completely.

* * *

His back against the outside of the nursing home building, Murdoc clicked the heel of his Cuban boot up against the sidewalk. He strung his long tongue against his teeth and then struck a second cigarette back between his lips. From the looks of the light inside, the remainder of the group session in the nursing home had continued without him or Stuart. Flinching, the man stole a look at the comatose kid at his side. He had wheeled Stu Pot out through the doors with him, murmuring a list of swears under his rancid breath. Stu hadn't even flinched; as suspected, he remained immune to the outside world around him.

But the boy only hung low in his wheelchair seat. His breath curled out before him, responding to the freezing cold weather of outside. He wasn't dressed for the winter, and the tip of his nose had turned bright red in the intense cold. Murdoc, however, remained content with the heat of the cigarette between his lips. When he glanced back down at Stu-Pot and stared into his vacant expression, he rolled his eyes and said sternly, "don' look a' me like tha', for fuck's sake..."

The boy may have been a complete git, but even Murdoc realized that he did not belong in the lunatic house with the rest of those wankers. Sure, he didn't talk or act on much, but Murdoc decided once and for all that his situation was a whole lot more tolerable than any of the other patients in the nursing home. Thus, feeling a tad bit generous, he pulled a second cigarette from his packet and bent down low. Squatted down at Stu's level, Murdoc titled his head to his side, analyzing the boy's face. He whisked away the blue hair that was stuck dried to his cheek and grabbed his chin with the bulk of his own calloused fingertips. Making Stu's mouth open into a slight 'O', Murdoc pried a spare cigarette between his lips and patted him on the chin with the back of his hand. "At least you go' one thing goin' for you... silent and mysterious, birds dig tha', you know." He backed away slightly, dusting off his trousers. "Tha' Paula Cracker sure seemed to, anyways."

"Paula Cracker seems t' wot?" Murdoc jumped, his heart racing. He stumbled backwards and came to clash within the legs of a darkened figure standing behind him. He glanced upwards, holding his pounding chest, only to look into the face of Paula herself. She didn't smile. Instead, she looked only more curious than she had before. There was something about her face that watched both Murdoc and Stuart at the same time. Only, she managed to inch forward without saying anything else whatsoever.

Murdoc glanced back at the girl, his hands shoved back down into his pockets. He hadn't had a chance to light Stu's limp cigarette, but he had forgotten all about it in the first place. He looked the girl up and down; bundled up in a jacket, she seemed oblivious to the continued group session that had carried on indoors. Instead, she remained standing, as if the chilly outdoors were perhaps a better place for her to remain. Up close, Murdoc could see that her face was not as pretty. She had a set of furiously bucked teeth, and she smelt as if she hadn't showered in a matter of days. Her black hair was greasy, and it sat atop her skull like an unkempt little mop.

He only stared back at her in scrutiny, his face soft until she spoke aloud again. "Tha' sweet of you, you know," she said after a while of his blank staring. "Talkin' t' 'im like tha'..."

Murdoc stiffened. He'd had enough of people and their assumptions with what went on between him and the coma-ridden kid. Immediately, he took offense to her suggestion, feeling all too bitter to find that she had snuck up on him in the first place. However, he had not meant to offend her when he spoke again. Nonetheless, Murdoc leaned forward, trying on a fraction of his charm when he mused very sincerely, "wot's with yer face, lovey?"

"Wot," hissed Paula, obviously taking offense. She shifted her weight, folding her pencil-arms across her breasts and looking very hostile.

"Tha' look on yer face," Murdoc challenged. He eyed her defensively, quite taken aback for a second. "Don' think I 'aven't noticed ya lookin' a Stu an' I the entire time in there..."

However, it was Paula's turn to be dumbstruck. Her face reddened, embarrassed, and she pulled the hair from her face, relaxing a bit to know that he had not particularly insulted her. She tugged on the sleeves of her jacket, readjusting herself for the sake of giving her body something to do. When she had finally stopped fiddling, she said, "I think I know yer friend..."

"Ya think, do you?"

"Well, I'm not certain," Paula confirmed, peering over Murdoc's shoulder to get a bit of a better look at Stuart. "Ah used t' know of a Stu Pot a bit ago... like a couple o' months? 'E worked in a music shop I used to get me picks from, we talked a bit."

The bassist's face drained, "did ya now?"

Paula nodded, "and 'e 'ad blue 'air, too, jus' like tha'..." Finally her face crunched up a bit, considering her options. "'Ow'd you say you met Stu again?"

Murdoc's face contorted. She hadn't known? Of course she hadn't known; it had only been her first time inside the nursing home in the first place. Other than the obvious grievances that the others had towards him, Paula had been only left to speculate as to why it was that they did not like him in the slightest. Thus, Murdoc weighed his options. He could either tell her the truth, or he could lie his arse off like he did with the others. He thought quickly on his feet, considering that, despite Paula's bucked teeth and arguably greasy skin, he very much wondered what she looked like without any clothing on.

He took the first route he could think of and shifted his weight approximately. "We 'aven't officially met yet," he told her, lying without much consciousness. "Ah wos shopping at the music store that 'e worked at when 'e got 'it in the head by a car... stayed with 'im 'till the ambulance arrived." To make himself sound more convincing, Murdoc rested his palm in the middle of Stu-Pot's shaggy blue hair. He ruffled up the mess of it, making it stick out further in all different directions. Then, as if truly a generous soul, he plopped down at lit the end of the boy's cigarette for him like a true gentleman.

Paula's eyes widened. "'E _is_ the same Stu, then!" she exclaimed, locking eyes with Stu's slouchy figure before turning back to Murdoc. "Ah went back in the shop an' it had been completely smashed t' bits! Ah heard abou' the accident but... " her sentence trailed off into the chilly breeze outside. Only, she stood still at the outskirts of the nursing home, perplexed. Her face had drained of any colour, but when her eyes finally found Murdoc she looked appreciative and generous. "Tha's very nice o' you, Mr. err...?"

"Niccals, love," Murdoc beamed, winking at her, despite her ill-expression.

She reached forward and shook his hand. When she had finished with the handshake, she walked towards the wall and leaned against it, next to Murdoc. Her eyes were glossy and she rummaged into her purse, withdrawing the pack of fags that Murdoc had noticed earlier. "Ah had t' get outta there," she said, breathing out so that smoke danced around her nostrils. "It's a bloody nightmare." Then, she turned back to Murdoc, noticing the forlorn look that Stu had on his face. His eyes searched around, though he looked without real purpose. He moaned slightly before sobbing and fixing his face up into a pout. His lost eyes seemed to water with every passing minute. Paula shook her head, addressing Murdoc timidly. "Ah don' know 'ow you do it..." Then, she added, "'e really wos very sweet."

"Oh Ah've 'eard," Murdoc mumbled, glancing back towards the door without conviction. As he looked through the window, however, he noticed the figure of Rachel Pot in the distance. She seemed to scan the group session, noting that her son was not present. He smiled at the shocked look that she had taken in, yet her eyes found Murdoc outdoors within the instant and her expression dropped. "Shit." Murdoc bent down hastily, retrieved the cigarette from Stu's lips and whirled back around to grasp the handles of the boy's wheelchair.

He noticed the fuming mother make her way out towards the back, but Paula stood only perplexed. "Oi," she inquired, watching Murdoc make off back into the nursing home, tossing his own fag over his shoulder. "Wot's a matta?"

"Things t' take care o, lovey!" Murdoc called, trying to appear collected for Rachel at the other end of the door. "Stu needs me indoors." And with that, he was gone, sucked into the harsh light of the nursing home altogether.

**

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"Look, I'm _telling _you, Muds, people in comas can't 'ear someone else talking." In his slumped over position on Murdoc Niccals' couch, Tiny's eyes rolled tirelessly back into his head. Somewhere between the late hours of eleven and twelve, his tone of voice had taken a slightly aggressive tone and, bitterly, he stuffed the remains of his food into his open mouth. "You've been at this shite for eight months now," he hissed, "and all 'e ever does is _moan_, for fuck's sake!" Then, whole-heartedly, Tiny's flabby body gave a discrete little twitch and he plummeted back down onto cushions. However, his anger had passed through the room as, quite frankly, understood. For the third time that week, Murdoc Niccals had chosen to stay home from the pub. Instead, his nights had been spent around Stu, coaxing his arousal with the smell of food, ache of punches, and attempt of threats.

Yet the bassist was far too desperate to give up. He ignored Tiny, turned back to the fold-out kitchen table behind him, and waved a handful of dried cereal in front of Stu's nostrils. "I don' think 'at 'e's too into food, if you know wha' I mean, Muds," said Billy-Boy, gesturing to Stuart's lanky figure before deflating as well.

The past eight months had been tiring for the two beefy men. Since they had relied on the comatose Stu Pot for their midnight women, they'd been required to follow Murdoc and the boy around in its entirety. Where Stu Pot was forced to go, they followed. Yet they could sense something horrifically anxious behind the eyes of their once unbreakable mate. Murdoc Niccals' diminishing social life had finally begun to get the best of him. His desperation to wake up the immobile Stu Pot had become something of an unhealthy obsession. Their eyes scanned the wreckage at the shag carpet of Murdoc's living room floor, noting the supplies he had laid out for the kid on impulse. With his foot, Billy-Boy nudged the pail of water next to him. "I don' think that splashin' 'im is going t'do the trick..."

Murdoc's eyes found Billy-Boy's, a stern expression floating about his gaze. He appeared for a moment as if he were about to lash out at him, however, he only whisked himself back around and snatched the water pail up from the carpet greedily. "Ye of little faith," Murdoc sneered, cradling the bucket in his lap and tilting his head back to one side. Fractionally, he analyzed the boy, gnawing devilishly on his lower lip.

Admittedly, he'd done quite the number on Stu Pot over their past eight months together. Though Stu's facial bruises were finally beginning to heal, the boy had still managed to look like an absolute mess. Nonetheless, Murdoc hadn't helped much to begin with. Over the last hour, his attempts to snap the boy out of his coma had garnered him an ample amount of fresh new scrapes to arrive back at the nursing home with. A slight hint of sympathy tingled in Murdoc's dark chest before washing away within the instant. Though guilt was never truly a sincere emotion of Murdoc Niccals, he couldn't help but feel a slight amount of pity for the boy in front of him. By all means, his situation was, quite frankly, rather humiliating...

He, Murdoc Niccals, had seen Stu Pot during what could have possibly be considered perhaps his most embarrassing moments. He'd lugged him around and wiped the drool from off of his face. If Stu Pot was ever going to wake up, he owed Murdoc plenty. However still, the Satanist's twinge of sorrow plucked at him hesitantly. Perhaps the boy's pathetic state had gotten old and tiring. He'd even felt a bout of slight sympathy at the memory of the group sessions at the nursing home just hours before. And while both Tiny and Billy-Boy found it to be immensely hilarious, Murdoc's determination had only grown ten-fold. But besides, child care had never been one of Murdoc's favourite hobbies.

But the look about Stu held him back for a moment; with his fingernails still on the edge of the metal pail, Murdoc froze in his position. He took in the sloppy sight of Stu's messy blue hair and the permanently black and blue bruises he'd had circling around his eyes. Though the boy's mouth had been only partly opened, Murdoc could see the missing teeth in the minute hole that separated his lips. Along the surface of his barely-moving and white chest, the crooked slant of multiple harsh scrapes were bright red and clearly visible. Though Stu had been propped upwards in his seat, his head shifted downwards, only doubling the look of his weary expression. The boy had been strapped to the plastic chair with a set of Tiny and Billy-Boy's belts- both big enough to wrap around Stu multiple times. His long arms were held down by the leather, as well, and only his feet were free; they joined together at the knee and struck out in opposite directions.

Desperation tripling, Murdoc squinted tiredly. His hope to rid himself of the boy's burden remained strong and consistent. He'd grown exhausted over hauling Stu around, over having to carry a duffle bag full of the boy's supplies, over having to spoon feed him meals that lasted for hours. He wanted rid of Stu Pot and it wasn't because he couldn't handle the guilt; though Billy and Tiny had to argue otherwise. Their suspicion had grown over the past several weeks and it certainly had not helped Murdoc's matters much. Relentless, they'd seemed to catch on cleverly, despite the bass player's insisting of otherwise. But, Murdoc was certain, still; over the months that Stu Pot had spent with him, the boy hadn't shown a single sign of waking up. Thus, guilty feelings or not, Murdoc was more than determined to chance his chances.

The green-skinned musician fixed his ponderous expression. "Hold your breath," he warned the kid, and thrust the contents of the metal bucket back into Stu's face with full force. The liquid splashed up against Stuart's tilted head, instantly dousing him in cold water. His blue hair flattened against his scalp and the front of his stupid pyjama shirt clung to his shakily rising chest. However, other than causing the boy to appear physically drained, Murdoc's water solution had done nothing further to revive the boy. Instead, he had only managed to ruin his carpet.

Tiny peered over Stu's figure, pinching the boy's sopping wet chin and ignoring the hissing inhales coming from Murdoc's aggravated direction. He brought the nineteen year old's face up into the flimsy kitchen light and pushed his blue hair from his eyes invasively. Then, dumbly, he stated the obvious; "nothing happened."

Murdoc's eyes narrowed. He glanced back down at the dripping wet boy and then gestured to the door with his chin. "Get the fuck out o' my house," he informed the two men. Within minutes, they had gathered their things and scrambled, both warned and threatened by the grimacing look on Murdoc's face. They tripped over their feet as they scattered, thus leaving Murdoc alone with Stu-Pot, further convinced of eventual damnation.


	11. Of Birds and BatShit Lunatics

**Psychic City: **I'm so sorry that its taken em so long to update, but I'm going to try to submit chapters for all of my fanfictions, so hopefully it will make it up to you! Thank you everyone who has reviewed on my fictions! I appreciate it so much!

Thank you: **Pandora Girl**,** Jinxie95**,** Atrusa Solaris**,** HikaxKaoxLovies**, and, **XxProperxsadxladyxSilent.**

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**Chapter Eleven:**  
**Of Birds and Bat-Shit Lunatics **

Murdoc Niccals had never been so careful with the likes of Stu-Pot before. However, he had also never really garnered himself quite the audience.

With her narrow eyes analyzing his every move, the fascinated expression of Paula Cracker made him move slowly, draping Stu's blankets over his knees before leaning back and feigning exhaustion. Paula had only just arrived at Murdoc's doorstep- as most women had- and Murdoc had already begun to act of charming her. It wasn't as if she were immensely interesting, or undefinably attractive; but Murdoc recognized her potential and had decided to flow with it. Thus, he'd invited her in, not surprised to see that she had tracked him down to his condo. So he glanced over his shoulder, and played the act of the interested bachelor.

Yet Murdoc was still groggy when she'd rung his doorbell in the early morning. Stu had been dropped off only hours beforehand and Murdoc had only just finished attempting to wake him from his coma by means of continual blows to the head. When he'd heard the noisy thing ringing, he'd slipped to the door and made a quick grab for the baggy button-up that had been strung across the back of the kitchen chair. He blinked his mismatched eyes, yawning, and pulled the bulk of the door open, slipping just his putrid green head through the slight crack that it created. When he had seen that his visitor was a woman, a small smile made his face appear more alive. When he had seen that the woman was Paula Cracker, he couldn't have looked more satisfied.

"Well, Ms. Cracker," he said casually, "fancy seeing you 'ere." His head swelled up to the size of a hot air balloon, and he leaned back into his doorframe with a stature that was only fractionally suave. His mind rambled something along the lines of, "_Murdoc Niccals, can you ever keep the birds away?"_

"Hi," Paula had smirked, a cigarette between her lips. She had been leaning casually against his doorframe already, looking slightly morose behind her friendly demeanor. Murdoc took a moment to glance her over. Her black hair hung just below her chin and lightly brushed the upper half of her neck. Behind her cat-eye sunglasses, her arched eyebrows jolted upwards, and the tip of her sparkly monroe piercing twinkled in the sun.

Murdoc lifted his hand to shield his eyes before stepping back slightly and yanking up the waist band of his boxer shorts. She wasn't much to look at, that Paula Cracker, but the fact that she had bothered to arrive at Murdoc's doorstep had made him a bit curious about her.

Nonetheless, again he noted the packet of fags sticking out from her purse and, more than anything, he wanted to bum one off of her.

He took consideration of his posture before he actually acted on it. Leaning to one side and crooking his head out towards his shoulder, Murdoc had mused, "'ow'd you get me address, lovey?" He let her in without waiting to hear an answer, leading her back into the living room where he had been with Stu. With a kick of his leg, he whisked the blunt objects that he had been using to whack Stu with under his skirt of his living room couch.

"Go' it from the nursing home staff," Paula chirped as she followed Murdoc indoors. She didn't notice Murdoc's quick moves. Instead she had been far too perplexed on sucking the life out of her hand rolled cigarette.

"Kind of unprofessional, doncha think?" he asked, "jus' givin' you me address like tha'?"

"Shady bastards, nursin' homes..." Paula responded, lifting her shoulders. She gave Murdoc's condo a quick glance around. He was quite the hoarder; things were thrown around the space carelessly, leaning against the walls and chipping the paint in the process. A pair of women's knickers had been thrown over the lampshade, and it gave the room a sort of pinkish glow. Usually, a woman would have been offended by such a public display of sexuality, but Paula Cracker found that she was only furthermore intrigued. Murdoc Niccals was quite different from the batty old lunatics at her grandfather's nursing home. He lived life and fucked around- so what? So did she.

"Gramps don't need you today?" Murdoc asked, walking in front of her slowly.

Paula made a face that was twisted with extreme disgust. She said seriously, "that man doesn't _need_ anythin' but a casket and a burial cite."

She found herself smiling at Murdoc for a moment, watching the back of his black haired skull lead the way before her. On his bare legs rest the marks of scars and bruises. In his desperate attempt to button his shirt up, he had left a bit of his back exposed. Paula could see that his lower back had been marked with the word, 'Helios', and she raised her eyebrows with curiosity. But then she'd spotted Stu, his blue hair sticking out slightly from the fluffy cushion of Murdoc's couch pillows. His eyes were closed, and a rather significant bump was forming at the top of his pale forehead. He was dressed in pyjama clothes, as she had seen him before, but Paula was certain that he had smears of black eyeliner smeared around his eyelids. She waited for a moment, perplexed on the surface of his shag carpet, and then took another drag off of her cigarette. "Wos tha matta' wif 'im?"

"'E's a vegetable," snorted Murdoc, glancing at Paula from the corner of his eye. Her top was low-fitting and Murdoc noted the way it hung low against her plummeting chest.

"'S hardly wot I meant," Paula coughed. The white smoke of her cigarette had begun to slip around her nostrils. It twirled around her face nastily, clogging Murdoc's condo with the scent ruthlessly. She hadn't even offered to out her cigarette when she'd entered the house. Instead, she only stood perplexed at the comatose kid, her hand cupping her curvy waist.

Murdoc spun around, eying the boy for himself this time. Sure enough, Stu Pot was bent over, the same hazy daze upon his face. He did not only look spacey, but appeared almost nonexistent. His corpse, only a shell, seemed to be the only real and physical thing about him. "Long night, Muhaha, ha ha," Murdoc decisively declared, and Paula huffed.

"Wot d'ya mean by tha'?" she asked, peering back down at Stu, her eyes narrowing.

Murdoc considered, for a split second, telling her the truth. Or, at least, a bit of it. She, of all people, wouldn't mind to hear that Stu Pot had had a little fun the night before. Sure, he was in a coma, but who was Murdoc to deny him of that? Right? Paula would like hearing that, Murdoc decided; she'd be crazy to not want to hear it. Yet Murdoc stumbled with getting out the words. He glanced up, leaned back, and acted casual. However, his mouth said, "nightmares."

"Nightmares?"

"Yeah, loads of 'em, poor bugga'." Murdoc winced. It wasn't as if his comment were not true; Stu had been having nightmares. But something about impressing Paula had kept him from admitting the truth about Stu Pot and his successful night the evening before. And, while Murdoc certainly was not interested in having a relationship with Paula, he truly did want to get in her pants.

Paula made a face, then shook her head. "I wos talkin' abou' the black eyes."

"Tha's from the accident," Murdoc retorted, tilting his head, his hands on his hips. Stu Pot's eyes were closed, but certainly she had seen his bad eye before during the group sessions at the nursery home. Murdoc concluded that either she had either had a pitifully bad memory, or she really was just that stupid.

"I mean the makeup."

"Ah, that." Murdoc Niccals bent down. He whipped out the wash cloth that the nursing home had given him to clean up Stu-Pot's drool, and instead spit on it himself. Then, as if he were trying to rub out the kinks on a car, he scrubbed the makeup from Stu's face hastily. "Wos tryin' t' do somethin' nice for ol' Stu, 'ere, lovey. Bring 'im back t' his roots, ya know?" His tongue struck out from his lips and he pressed harder on the nineteen-year-old's pale skin. "'E wos always a bit of a punk before the accident."

"I don' remba tha'," Paula retorted, but she said nothing further and, instead, bent down to get a better look.

Murdoc watched her as she, in turn, watched Stu-Pot. Something about her face seemed solemn, yet horrified. He noticed her distance, close yet far all at the same time. Her hands rest on her knees and her cigarette had been positioned between her spidery fingers. She didn't bother to pull her dark hair away from her face, and she peered back at Stu through her locks like curtains. And her mouth opened and closed, as if looking for something proper to say. When she couldn't quite come up with anything, however, she rested back down, shoulders lowering and eyes falling.

She was a rather strange person, Paula Cracker. She seemed so angry, yet so curious all at the same time. She took off her sunglasses, positioning them at the collar of her shirt, unknowingly blocking Murdoc's view of her cleavage. But her body stature screamed something dangerous, while the look of her eyes whispered something sympathetic. Murdoc could tell that she wasn't a good person deep down, but perhaps she was truly trying to be.

Murdoc had finished off polishing Stu's face. He rest his elbow on the armrest of his couch and turned back away from the comatose boy. "So," he asked, "what do you think?"

The woman before him remained pensive. Her soft face slumped down low, and her eyebrows twisted in a knot, pulling the cigarette back up to her lips. She shook her head lightly and seemed to forget about the cigarette in her hands that was flicking ash onto Murdoc's shag carpet. Yet she remained looking at Stu's shut eyes, his face wiped away completely; and he really did look like a boy. Almost too young of a boy, despite being nineteen and drooling. Stuck still in her train of soft thought, Paula said gently, "I think its strange when ya' think abou' it. A young man in a nursing home..."

Face twisting, Murdoc's eyes narrowed. Stu-Pot was hardly what he had been talking about. "I meant the condo, love," he said flatly.

"Oh," Paula blinked, drawing away from Stu-Pot, she said to Murdoc, "its, err... interesting."

Murdoc winked, leaning forward and lifting himself back up to his feet. "That's more like it. Be right back, love," he said. His eyes scanned the living room for a pair of trousers that he could slip on, but he came up unsuccessful. Usually, however, he wouldn't have bothered to dress himself, yet with Paula staring at Stu, he figured that perhaps he would step up his game. Besides, giving the girl a moment alone with the boy would, he assumed, get him points. As much as he loathed the little pain in his arse, he had to admit- Stu-Pot certainly knew how to reel them in. "I'll give ya a second," he told Paula, after a short moment of quick thought, "got t' find me pants." And, with that, he strode away into the depths of his bedroom.

Thus, Paula Cracker remained squatting, her face twisted and tilted as if to get a better look at Stu Pot, sitting there before her slumped. She wished Murdoc didn't leave her alone with him; it was quite a strange feeling to be alone with the comatose being. And yet, Paula wasn't exactly sure she could consider Stu much of a person, anyways. He was more like a presence, a load of light weight that poor Murdoc Niccals had to drag around everywhere. Sure, he drooled and dreamt like a person, but he couldn't do much for himself. She spotted the formulas at the kitchen counter across from her and her stomach flipped with disgust. Stu couldn't talk, couldn't move... and yet, Paula Cracker found herself unable to not feel sympathetic.

Or, at least, she didn't know what exactly to feel. She'd known him a little, in all honesty. Stuart Pot was the boy she had seen at Uncle Norms every once in a while. He'd struck up conversations with her, and she'd noticed his nervousness as he stumbled over trying to sell her keyboards, when really all she'd wanted was a guitar pick. She considered the fact that he'd just wanted to talk to her; perhaps he was bored at work, or looking for some kind of distraction. And she wondered how she'd feel if she had, in fact, gotten to know Stu Pot better. Maybe then would she be angry at Murdoc. Maybe then, she wouldn't have come knocking on his door.

Still staring, Paula Cracker kept her distance. "Why'd you stick your head unda' that car, huh?" she whispered, shaking her head in a matter that was both disappointed and scolding. Stupidly, she waited for an answer. Her face grew red with curiosity. She couldn't help but be afraid; she didn't want to touch him, didn't want to get too close. "You've ruined both Murdoc's life an' yours, Stu," she told him carefully. "You're only nineteen... you don' belong in a loony house."

_At nineteen years old, with a pretty face like that_, Paula thought, _Stu Pot could have amounted to so much more. _

She didn't notice when Stu's black and blue eyes gave a little flicker. And then the boy let his eyelids droop open.

That she'd noticed; how could she not? Stu Pot was staring right at her. He looked sad, miserable, and tired. She hoped he couldn't see her, couldn't hear her. And, despite herself, she fumbled back, landing on her arse with a thud that shook the panties from the lampshades and made her sunglasses fall from her top. Paula's hand flung to her chest, heaving up and down rapidly. "Uhh," she breathed, her eyes wide with fear, "err- Murdoc! Murdoc!"

Stu's face fell; he looked as if he were about to cry.

"Murdoc!"

The face of the slimy green bass player appeared through the crack of his bedroom door. "Wot is it?" he asked carefully before his eyes found Paula on the floor. "Oi," he called out, looking from the distraught woman. Then he found Stu Pot on the couch ahead of him. His blue hair was a mess and his head lolled downward. Of all things, he'd woken up. Murdoc arched an eyebrow. He'd found his tight trousers, and looked out of place in his strangely nice button up. "'E's just woken up," Murdoc explained, blankly.

Paula swallowed hard, her eyes still wide and fearful. "Is tha' normal?"

There was a bout of silence that passed between the two of them. She was panting and heaving, her chest moving up and down, and her fingers clinging on to the shag of the carpet below her. The cigarette she had been holding had fell beneath the strands on the floor; her fall backwards had put it out completely. Murdoc had never seen a woman react to Stu-Pot in that way before. Usually, they loved it when Stu opened his eyes. Sure, his one wonky eye had taken a slight while to get used to, but that was never much of an issue. Stu-Pot was pretty, he was silent, and he didn't bitch to them. Certainly, he hadn't spooked Paula Cracker by yelling out, "BOO!" before continuing on living in a coma again.

"That's normal?" Paula asked again in a loud voice.

Then Murdoc shrugged, "woll... yeah..."

The woman on the ground before Murdoc Niccals shook her head. She seemed to have lost her previous cool. No longer was she so sexy and mysterious. Instead, she seemed to act ten years younger than Murdoc had expected her to be. "I've got to go," she muttered, stumbling up off the floor and making a quick grab for her purse in the corner. She looked back at Murdoc for a moment, but avoided any eye contact with Stu Pot completely.

"Wot." Murdoc merely stated, watching the girl scramble. Certainly, she'd lost her dangerous demeanor, but she was still a woman, and Murdoc still wanted her. "Why?"

Paula shook her head. She stumbled back out towards the door. However, her foot was caught on the cardboard boxes that lined the floor; Stu's things. Tripping, Paula fumbled to the ground for a second time. Her knees hit first, and the box tipped back over. Out fell Stu's melodica, and his music books; out fell the scrapbooks his mother had made, and the collection of zombie films. Murdoc's carpet was now a complete mess, scatted with all things Stu. And Paula was covered in it, wrapped in his baby blanket and his stupid schoolyard sweater vests. Around her head lay the keyboard print ribbon that was his one nice tie.

For a moment, she sat delirious, caught completely off guard by her sudden act of irony. And Murdoc couldn't help but simply stand there, his face twisted as if he couldn't decide to laugh or help her up. But the moment did not last long. Paula yanked the tie from her head and stumbled across the floor. She didn't say goodbye, either. Instead, she rushed off, her focus at the front door alone, and slammed it with such force that the figure of Stu-Pot finally gave way on the couch and he slipped into a hunched position of himself reactively.

Murdoc Niccals turned around to stare at Stu, whose face now rest in his lap. He looked at the door, at the pile of Stu's things, and then back at the kid. Whatever had just happened, Murdoc was not really sure. "Huh," he said, making his way back over to Stu and lifting his head back up to examine his face. The boy was pale, blank, and still very much a vegetable. Making a face, he thought back to Paula Cracker for a split second. Then, decisively, he scooted Stu Pot over and took a seat down next to him with his hands crossed over his chest. "Wot a fucking psycho," he stated, "eh, Stu?"

* * *

**Psychic City: **Finally a new chapter, huh? ;) But, I promise, no more long breaks!


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